The Normal Life
by Bre-dust2dust34
Summary: BtVS/SPN/HIMYM Crossover. The Hellmouth in Sunnydale has been closed for years and Buffy is living the happy nothing-Slayer-related normal life she always wanted in NYC until an attack one night reminds her of everything she thought she was okay leaving behind...
1. Chapter One - May 2018

**I wrote this in July for Camp NaNo "to see if I could." Posting as I finish up Pillars of Sand. :)**

The Normal Life

by Bre

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or parts of this storyline. They belong to the brains of The Whedon, The Kripke and The Bays/Thomas. I also do not own the lyrics used.  
Rating: R/FR18 (violence, language, dark themes and sexual references)

Author's Notes: Nobody bothers to read AN notes anymore so I'm listing them for easy reference:

-Written for July 2013 Camp NaNoWriMo. Credit for the original idea goes to TheDana. I just executed and embellished. A lot.  
-No HIMYM knowledge required! I haven't watched HIMYM in a long while so things are definitely out of order. It's an AU, expect nothing less.  
-I've only been to NYC a few times, and I've never lived there. I tried.  
-Fun story, I work in a medical malpractice law office… and I still suck at medical jargon. Again, I tried.  
-Playing by BtVS rules with the vampires and combining mythology on other aspects from both shows.  
-Song lyrics are "The Dogs of War" by Pink Floyd, "Turn to Stone" by Joe Walsh and "Something Real" by Renee Stahl.  
-This is written according to HIMYM tactics. Non-italics represent Buffy in first person, telling the story. Italics represent past scenes in third person.

Couples: Buffy/Dean, Buffy/Ted  
Timeline: BtVS: Multiple years post S7; SPN: Multiple years post S8 (for the sake of this story, the gates of Hell were closed and Sam did not die because of it); HIMYM: Undefined. I am going against the timeline grain according to the show - run with it!

Summary: BtVS/SPN/HIMYM Crossover. The Hellmouth in Sunnydale has been closed for years and Buffy is living the happy nothing-Slayer-related normal life she always wanted in NYC until an attack one night reminds her of everything she thought she was okay leaving behind...

* * *

**Chapter One - May 2018**

_you can knock at any door  
__but wherever you go, you know they've been there before  
__well winners can lose and things can get strained  
__but whatever you change, you know the dogs remain_

I'm gonna tell you a story.

Tonight is my one year anniversary.

It has been exactly one year since everything got completely sucked into the crap fan for what is officially quantified as the bajillionth time - that's right, the bajillionth time. This girl right here? You're looking at the unofficial queen of Life Suckage. I guess I'm feeling a little nostalgic in that weird way where it was one of the crappiest days of my life, but also not at the same time…

I'm also waiting for someone and you look comfortable and talking to the trees just isn't the same, so story time it is.

Hey, don't roll your eyes. This is a story about all the cool things you see in the movies: blood, gore, scary goons, explosions, car chases... alright, those last two not so much, but you might get some good Slayer info out of this, which you know, you won't really be able to apply in the future because of the whole soon-to-be-dust factor, but hey. Yay knowledge.

So this is a story about being… cookie dough. Yeah, cookie dough. And then baking yourself. And then not liking being baked and letting yourself melt back to cookie dough… if cookies could actually do that…

Okay, that makes no sense at all, that's an awful analogy. Sorry, cue the nonsensical reference to something else that is kind of related, but also has nothing to do with it at the same time and wow, I am rambly tonight.

Maybe it's better saying I am an oatmeal raisin cookie and I wanted to try being a chocolate chip cookie. Switch out the ol' raisins for some ol' chocolate chips… because everyone likes chocolate, right? Even vampires?

Come on, don't lie.

And change is good! Most of the time. Although the kind of unfortunate part about trying to be someone else is you're born one way and most of the time that's just the way you want to be, even if you don't know it, even if you spend years trying to change it and ignore it and pretend like raisins are on the extinction list in your life…

This will all make sense, I swear. I suck at the whole story-preface-to-hook-you-in thing.

So once upon a time, there was a girl. She had a life. She went to school, she had friends and family and people she loved, and really, life was pretty good considering. But there was something about her that was a little bit strange.

I know what you're thinking: that's every single person on the planet, be a little more self-involved.

Well, smart guy, not every person on the planet is born with the destiny to be The Slayer. The one (or two or three in my case, but that's another long story) girl in her generation who runs around cemeteries, poking bad guys with pointy sticks and generally being as limber as a pretzel…

And that just switched gears into the land of the inappropriate, ignore that last part.

Anyway, this made her less than normal. More abnormal. Freakishly abnormal. And abnormal is just weird. It's that puzzle piece that has an extra part that doesn't fit anywhere, even though it came with all the other puzzle pieces.

And she really hated it.

She didn't really know she hated it though; it was a total sneaky hate spiral that suddenly blew up in her face one day. It was a destiny-hating kind of beast that lurked in the shadows, making you think you were fine with what life had handed you and that you were fine playing the part and that you were fine with the Canada-sized platter on which life kept piling the bad stuff.

But she did what she had to do. She took the reins of destiny and rode that puppy to saving the world a few times, dying a few times, watching her friends die or get hacked to pieces… Same old, same old.

She did what she had to do, all the while secretly despising it so much that she knew one day something would snap; when she would be ready to let it all go and just do something for herself, and her alone. Which is ironic considering being a Slayer is all about being alone.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's really you and all of humanity because evil isn't that picky, so the alone part I'm talking about doesn't apply to the Chosen One bit.

All of this led to her feeling a lot of guilt because she felt like she was supposed to be grateful that she had supernatural powers and the ability to kick anybody in the face… but it only made her hate it even more. The expectation alone was about the weight of giant ape holding dumbbells and sitting on your chest and it only led to her feeling this epically messed up superiority over everyone around her… which led to feeling like an even bigger jerk about her life and her role in it and even more sneaky hate spiral.

She loved her friends and family and she loved that they were able to maintain the journey by her side… but there were only so many people she could love and lose, so many times the world could dip into the peril bin and come out on fire and she was the only one with the fire repellant before you started losing your sense of duty. Before you were done watching your entire town disappear into a giant sinkhole because of a deranged spirit-bad-guy-wanna-be and… you just lost that special thing called "caring." When you decide that being a pillar of strength for everyone around you, carrying the burden, walking around with all the answers and the solutions, was slowly eating at your insides until there was nothing left but going through the motions.

Air in, air out. Punch in face, kick in shin. Go to sleep, wake up. Eat some food, drink some drink…

And guess what?

That day finally came.

The day when I realized my sister was attending school in England, thousands of miles away from me. The day when I realized my best friend had advanced to levels of witchcraft I could never even hope to understand or relate to. The day when I realized my other best friend had fallen in love with my sister and they were somehow secretly dating right under my nose. The day when the man I viewed as my mentor and father had about a couple hundred more children to look after. The day when I saw my sister Slayer stepping up and becoming better than I ever could in the role of anything leadership-like. The day when I realized that the world was overrun with Slayers and that I….

I just wasn't needed anymore. That destiny had let me go. That I was standing and holding up nothing but air… and that it was up to me to actually do something about it.

Wow, getting a little philosophical and little bit long-winded, my bad. But it really was like an epiphany slapped me in the face.

So I left Cleveland, left the Slayer house there in the hands of my capable second-in-command sister Slayer - I even gave her the scythe, this super badass ax/stake combo created specifically for Slayers that even you would be impressed to be on the other end of - and I just drove.

Just… drove. Borrowed some money from Giles, left and went… somewhere. Actually, I kind of went west a little before getting looped back around and somehow I eventually ended up in New York where I found myself in a little community college studying art history… and then a hop skip second later, I found myself a job as an assistant to a curator at one of the art galleries that frequented Manhattan like Starbucks did, you know, everywhere.

It was crazy. And fast. And… exactly what I wanted.

Things were great. Things were busy.I had everything I had always wanted, all the things I hadn't allowed myself to really dwell on; what that little voice in the back of my head had always whispered to me about the way things could be when I would cry myself to sleep during the Angel years or when I pretended to love people because I thought I should or when I would fight the desire to run away after my mom died or when I let a certain not-to-be-named vampire do things to me that I would never have imagined letting happen or when I turned around and watched that same guy, someone who turned into one of the most important people in my life, turn to ash right before my eyes or when I felt that heavy resigned feeling whenever the weight of the world landed on my shoulders because it was getting sucked into another freaking hell dimension again.

I had a job. I had an apartment. I went to bed at ten every night and woke up at five. I bought too many shoes and wore glamorous clothes that I would never have been able to afford to wear on my old 'kill, blood, dust' schedule. I was even entertaining the idea of getting a dog a.k.a. an actual living creature. There had been this whole goldfish incident trauma thing that kinda scarred me, but had apparently long since faded away by then.

Of course, that probably wouldn't happen since I did still kill my plants. I mean, they were in the sunlight and got watered, I never really understood the how of them dying but they still managed to wilt, literally right before my eyes… I even tried talking to them, soothing them… which only made them die quicker.

This was always kind of a Buffy issue. With everything. Probably why I was so good at the killing instead of the growing stuff… And also probably a good reason to be nice and keep listening, huh? A little less hissing a little more listening equals you get to live longer, buddy. Not like you're going anywhere.

If we have time, I can tell you the story of how I had to dig myself out of my grave, so I totally get how uneasy that is. Your foot is probably stuck on something.

Anyway, despite the killing of the plant life, things were going pretty smoothly. And to top off the cherry pie life I had created so far away from where my old life started, I fell in love. Like, I _fell in love_. Hard. With someone normal, someone silly, someone who could look at me and not see my past, not see what I had been, what I had become before Sunnydale went kaput.

Someone who accepted me for what I was at that point in my life and didn't pry into my past. He didn't even care about my past. He accepted the vague references and summaries that totally dodged the subject. He knew about the remaining family I had and that they lived out of the country mostly. That my hometown was a pit of dust because of a freak accident. He accepted that I had come from somewhere really dark and unhealthy and unwelcome compared to the "now" - and I didn't even have to go into the whole Slayer gig thing; the whole "supernatural things are real, yeah… Crazy, huh?" thing because it wasn't even a thing to go into.

He just… he accepted me. Without a second thought.

He was one of those guys who was probably too overly excited about the future and what it held for him and whoever was lucky enough to join in that crazy ride of love at his side. He was literally the most optimistic person I had ever met, and this is coming from someone who knows the early years of Willow Rosenberg. He was someone who accepted that we all came from somewhere, good and bad, dark and light, and only looked to the future, hopefully with that one special person.

And for a while, that person was me. And I really liked it. Not only was he a great guy - a mixture of my best friend's goofiness and one of my ex's calm doofiness with the large side of monogamy - but he also had this group of friends that made me feel right at home. A separate life from my old one that felt… good. Right. Comfortable. One that I was ready to spend the rest of my life fitting right into like nothing else had ever happened… like I hadn't died twice or like my best friend hadn't tried to end the world or that two of my boyfriends were super hot vampire guys with souls…

I was just little ol' normal me who worked in an art gallery and developed a really bad dependence on coffee.

And it was perfect. I was like this alternate version of Buffy. Being a Slayer didn't matter or exist, having to constantly save the world wasn't even on my radar… there were other people for that, other people to take over the putting-out-of-the-world-fire thing.

I was happy.

I was… free.

But wouldn't you know it, the past always finds a way to leak right back into your life, no matter how hard you tried to bury it.

But the surprise wasn't how it leaked in or how much it bulldozed me… but how I reacted to it.

It's a little bit like your past doesn't just disappear with a little "normal life" varnish…


	2. Chapter Two - May 2014

**Chapter Two - May 2014 (eleven years post Sunnydale turning into a giant hole) **

_hey now, the well run dry  
__pages of the book on fire  
__read the writing… on the wall…_

_"Buffy, come on!"_

_"No, I have to go!"_

_"This magnanimous glass of beer in my hand completely disagrees."_

_Buffy Summers rolled her eyes. "I've been here for four hours, Barney. Four. Hours. And look, I'm leaving a happy Ted in my place."_

_"Bah! Ted's boring. I can't do anything with Ted anymore. He's all…" Barney Stinson made a face at their table mate who watched him with a patiently amused smile on his face. "Well, you've broken him. What kind of best friend ditches the honorable position of wing man? I mean really."_

_"Uh, you mean after the last time when you said I had a life-threatening and completely non-transferrable disease and I was all alone in the world but for my childhood best friend who also happens to be my doctor?" Ted Mosby cut in. Buffy raised her eyebrows, turning to face Barney who rolled his eyes. "And proceeded to try to hook me up with one of those girls after saying we both needed 'shoulders' to lean on because the whole disease thing was really taking a toll?"_

_"Oh really?" Buffy said. "And why am I just now hearing about this? And by the way, smooth - non-transferrable disease? Really?"_

_"Please, it didn't work anyway. And it was your fault, Summers, because you weren't there as my darling sister who only cares about the welfare of her brother… and the people who occupy his bed. Or his couch." Barney's smile grew. "Or a bathroom sink or the back of a taxi cab."_

_Buffy snorted, remembering the one and only time she had played his sister in the gross play he called life and how it had ended. Oh yeah, that had been fun. Enter sarcasm. "And that's my cue to leave."_

_"God, you two are so dull. With your coupley-face and you stupid coupley-happiness and your… stupid dullness."_

_"Uh-huh," Buffy said, turning to face Ted. She cocked her head. "So he tried to hook you up with a girl again, huh?"_

_"And it ended with me telling her about my beautiful and super committed live-in girlfriend," Ted finished, smiling. "Dry cleaning?"_

_"Dry cleaning," Buffy said with a nod. "Gotta get my power suit."_

_"At least she suits up," Barney said in a low voice, glancing around the bar, perusing the banquet. They ignored him._

_"We'll be here later; Marshall and Lily are coming in a bit."_

_Buffy smiled. It seemed everyone's life schedules had been busier than they normally were and they hadn't had the group together for a while. She hadn't seen Lily or Marshall in actual conversation-having ways. She had seen them in a few other senses. She winced as her thoughts led her to what her roomies were most likely doing upstairs before shuddering at the memories of the many times she had walked in on them as they christened the couch… and then Ted's desk… the windowsill… the tub… the floor… and then the kitchen again._

_"Right. I'll be back here then."_

_"Ah!" Barney suddenly said, raising his arm as Robin Scherbatsky stopped a few feet away, looking weary as she shook out her drenched umbrella. Buffy stood up after a quick peck from Ted. "Robin is here to save the day. Wing Woman checking in!"_

_"They're all yours," Buffy said with a smile before heading to the exit._

_"Oh goody," Robin replied, sliding in next to Ted._

_It was raining cats and dogs and rats and possums when Buffy stepped out of MacLaren's. The drops were the size of the cars parked outside her building as she held a newspaper above her head and started sprinting. It always took weather like this to remind her why she didn't need to feel guilty about getting newspapers just to read the horoscopes. Hello, perfect faux umbrellas, especially since she hadn't bothered to get a new one since she left her last one on the subway._

_Despite the weather, she wasn't the only one out - she dodged around the people and the obstacles that littered every Manhattan street like the sidewalk was the nuisance._

_Her emergency dry cleaning run was of the necessary, despite the weather. She needed that damn suit because it was her lucky suit and her boss had made it extra clear that the meeting tomorrow was "imperative" to land this "ultra important" client. Thus the lucky suit was being called into action._

_Buffy was finally starting to get what her mom had been talking about when it came to the artists she hosted and the money she brought them and the weird and somehow creepy joy of facilitating someone else's joy when their artwork sold. It never failed to amaze her how easy it was to fill those Joyce Summers shoes, to pretend like this had been her life goal all along…_

_Buffy shoved that thought away as she jogged down the street. She wasn't filling those shoes. They were her shoes, although very much so molded a la Joyce Summers... And they were comfy. And in her head, they were the shiny leather boots she had seen the other day that she had already started mentally saving up for._

_The dry cleaner was only a couple of blocks away and she was getting soaked to the bone as cars whipped through the streets, splashing water out of the potholes like geysers. She sighed in exasperation at herself as two empty taxis drove by._

_Stopping to catch her breath and to shake out her newspaper, Buffy ducked into an alley, standing beneath an overhang._

_"Rain, rain, go away," she mumbled, peeking out to glance at the sky. It looked like an endless black hole of miserable water coming at her. Thank you, spring weather, for visiting at the most inopportune times. Now turn off that overly considerate rain knob and stop…_

_Buffy took a deep breath, shoving her purse higher on her shoulder, ready to finish her trek when she felt a tight, uncomfortable cramping in the pit of her stomach, but it registered too late._

_Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion as her instincts started screaming one thing, her mind doing another and her heart responding to both. She felt a catch in her breath as she stepped out into the rain; alarms started screaming at the back of her mind… the newspaper was already leveled above her head to help cascade the New York weather from doing too much damage when they hit._

_She was too slow - she didn't react when a pair of hands grabbed her upper arm and yanked her back with so much force, she felt like the tendons in her shoulder were ripping apart._

_God, how many years had it been since she had had to brace for an attack like this? How long had it been since her body had reacted on instinct, knowing that she could easily go with the motion while spinning around to shove her fist into whoever dared to attack her?_

_Too long._

_It had been too long and Buffy's mind blanked as the searing pain ripped through her upper body. The hands tugged her back, her feet losing grip on the ground and her world suddenly tilted._

_She had been living in Manhattan for three years now - longer than that in New York when her shabby Brooklyn apartment was included on the list - and she had never been attacked. She had never worried about being attacked because she was the Slayer. Or she had been. She couldn't even remember the last time she had let herself have a decent training session… hell, the last time she had even gone for a run._

_Because after a while, she thought she hadn't needed to._

_Buffy cried out in pain as gravity slammed her into the wet concrete. The vampire didn't pause as he dragged her further into the inky darkness of the alley. Her back and shoulders roared in protest as he yanked her along, her weight catching on the gutted holes of the alley floor, her nose filling with the rank piss-covered walls and moldy garbage. Every distress signal in her head shot to life, her body flooding with adrenaline as the vamp dragged her into the shadows, moving quickly. She felt her jeans grating on the ground, her back getting scraped until it felt like it was on fire._

_But the worse pain was in her stomach - it was cramping like someone was twisting a whisk inside her abdomen._

_There were more of them. A lot more._

_It was the wrong kind of adrenaline rocking through her body as she opened her mouth to scream. It was cut off when one of the vampires kicked her in the face, his shoe landing solidly in the center of her nose. White hot pain exploded in her head, blood started gushing from her nose; Buffy choked as it started to run down the back of her throat. She felt a clawed hand curl into her wet hair and tug her head back as the others crowded around her, hands grabbing her flailing limbs, holding her down._

_Panic burst inside her body like a bomb, obliterating any pain as it instantly started screeching the instinct to run through her system. Her mind scrambled to come to terms with what was happening as they positioned themselves around her. The panic was like a black noxious cloud covering her body, dulling everything else but the need to scream until her vocal cords ripped. She couldn't think, couldn't concentrate; she couldn't move but to struggle against the hands clamped on her body._

_Her mouth was open but all she could hear was a thick white noise, the sound of her blood rushing through her body, the sound of someone's cries…_

_She felt the gentle spatter of the raindrops ricocheting off the ground; she felt fetid breath on her skin as they chuckled, exchanging words she couldn't hear. They tugged up her sleeves and pulled her sweater down to expose her throat. Her eyes blinked against the rain as she tried to see her attackers, the hot blood oozing from her face feeling painful against her clammy skin._

_Just as breathing started getting harder, her lungs contracting painfully in time with her panic, she felt two more pairs of hands scratching at the inside of her thighs, fighting through her wet denim to expose the sensitive and plentiful veins at the juncture of her legs and an agonizing shot of fear speared through her chest._

_Like an open wound, she felt every inch of her skin being violated. The sound of denim tearing ripped through the air as one of them took a deep, needy breath at the scent of her blood… and she suddenly felt something snap inside._

_Like a crack in her mind, Buffy let go, let the panic fill her to the point of bursting as the vampires ducked down to take their fill._

_Her body did the rest._

_With a shout, a commanding rush surged through her limbs as instinct took over and she jerked her legs free with surprising strength, slamming her knees into two faces simultaneously. A howl of pain echoed through the alleyway as Buffy yanked one arm free and slammed her fist into another face, squirming her body to get out, to get off the ground and back onto an even playing field._

* * *

It wasn't until later that I realized what I was feeling in that moment was power. Pure, unadulterated power, something I wasn't controlling… it just took over me. It was intoxicating. It had been so long since I'd let myself go, since I had let myself do what I was born to do, since I had defended myself against such evil. It was like I had been living in this gauze-covered world and suddenly everything was clear and distinct.

It felt good.

It felt right.

Which, you know, had the potential to clash with the whole "normal life" thing, but that's really spoiling the story.

* * *

_Breaking the hold on her upper body, Buffy rolled to her feet. Her head throbbed from the hard kick she had received, the blood flowing in a gush from both nostrils. She mopped it up, looking down in detached wonder as the red stained her sweater, as the blood on her hand washed away in small splats from the heavy rain before looking up at the five vampires before her. The fear and panic was gone, almost like it had never been there._

_In its place was a fast-growing anger as she felt the tears in her jeans at her inner thighs and the scratches on her neck from tugging her shirt down… She felt her intestines cramping painfully at the thought of what they had almost gotten. What she had almost let them have._

_One of the vampires laughed, the rain making his ghastly face glisten, accenting the heavy shadows under his brow and cheekbones. "We've got a slippery one, fellas." The other vampires chuckled along with him as he stepped forward, the clear leader. "But wouldn't you know it, we just got back into town. Haven't had a decent meal in a few days… So you won't get far."_

_Where once upon a time, she would have had a quippy response, Buffy just stared at them, her lungs expanding rapidly. Gritting her teeth, she licked her lips, tasting the metallic tinge leaking from her nose. She chanced a quick glance around and saw they had her surrounded, cornered against a wall and a dumpster that looked like it had grown as tall as the buildings around it._

_And luck was just making her its plaything as there were no handy pieces of sharpened wood lying about._

_A spike of anxiety struck her chest, but Buffy pushed it down. The desire to get out and take a moment to breath - to let the shock wash over her and let her realize she wasn't just some ordinary woman on the streets of Manhattan - was overwhelming but she didn't have any other choice. She could only do one thing if she wanted to get out of this alley alive._

_Fight._

_"Try running," the leader taunted, his voice rasping between his fangs and the rain. Brushing wet hair from her face, Buffy clenched her fists, raising them up, not liking her odds._

_It had been years - years - since she had last sparred with a punching bag, much less a dead flesh and blood creature. The familiar power of her lineage was scorching through her body, but she also felt weak. Out of practice. Like she had shoved that part of her life so far down and out of the way that it had been left to rust in the dust..._

_"Oh yeah, that's good." The vampire chortled. "Struggling makes the blood spicier."_

_Buffy's eyes danced to his lackeys as they threw in a few comments. Despite the rain, she could see their drool at the prospect of a meal. The meal being her blood. A roar of rebellion and strength seared her stomach and Buffy clenched her fists tighter. She was a Slayer. A rusty Slayer, but also the longest living in Slayer history._

* * *

I might as well name this story "How Buffy Lived Under A Rock Named Denial and How That Rock Blew Up In Buffy's Face."

What was really interesting was how I managed to escape all those years in New York without meeting even one vampire in the dark, but that's getting off topic… and don't even get me started on the guilt factor of living there for so long and not slaying anything, we'll get to that. It was like the oatmeal raisin cookie part of myself went into hibernation and was now suddenly getting burned alive.

Or, you know when you wake up from a nap and it feels like the entire universe is wrong? Do vampires nap? I guess you wouldn't know quite yet, being new and all. But it felt like my universe had done a complete one-eighty. Total mind screw.

* * *

_They attacked, swarming around her and with a tremble in her limbs, Buffy met them._

* * *

It was bloody and it was awful. I didn't have a stake. I was throwing punches like I didn't know how to aim and I would have died about ten different times if I didn't have that special something that moves you for you… if that makes sense. You know, Slayer instinct. You'd get an idea if you were going anywhere tonight.

I almost broke three fingers, I cracked a rib and one of them nearly shattered my left knee. It was exhausting and painful and I was freaking out the entire time. It was a lot like my first night of slaying: terrifying.

* * *

_Buffy felt something in her spine crack when one of the vamps slammed her against the corner of the dumpster. A pained cry fell from her lips as she collapsed to the ground. Fighting to get a breath in, she pushed through the searing pain in her back to swing her leg out and knock two of them off their feet._

_She was losing. Badly. And shame and foolishness were starting to win the battle inside her chest as she realized she hadn't left her home prepared for something just like this since long before she had even moved to Manhattan._

_She was going to die._

_Clamoring to her feet, Buffy elbowed one and shoved her foot back to catch the one trying to take her out from behind. Sweeping around, she nailed him in the face with her foot, watching with a quick glimpse of satisfaction his fall to the ground. It was short lived though when a heavy fist landed on her chin, rocking her head to the side and making her lose her balance again._

_Flashes of her life flew before her eyes as she rolled to her knees, crawling achingly slow to the wall to get leverage to stand. Her body shook as she saw Ted the first time she'd met him thanks to Barney's game of "Have You Met Ted?" and then both of them in bed sharing a joke before seeing him shove an ice cream cone in her face._

_She saw her boss, Marinna, high-fiving her after she successfully helped at her first art showing. She saw herself with all her friends at MacLaren's, sharing a laugh and a plate of hot wings before she saw Dawn's face. Her mom's… And then Willow's. Xander. Giles. Faith. Spike. Angel. Riley… hell, she even saw all the new Slayers. The ones she had left in the hands of Faith for training... Double hell, she even freaking saw Andrew._

_It was all washing down the drain, drowning in the blood, grime and dirty water falling on her as she climbed to her feet. She didn't have any weapons, nothing to dissuade the vamps from coming at her. She had already broken one wrist, two noses and knocked one of them out but it wasn't enough. She'd had enough openings for the kill but nothing to kill with._

* * *

Also known as I was really screwed.

* * *

_A fierce bark of anger lit up in Buffy's mind as the attacks continued. She felt a kidney hit just as she landed a double-fisted hit to one vamp's head. She grabbed one's leg and flipped him away while another tried to get leverage with her sweater but she was too fast. Her knee connected with a nose as one ripped some hair from her scalp._

_One grabbed her from behind and slammed her into the wall, her head ricocheting off the brick. And just like that, a hive of bees took residence inside her skull as her brain whipped through the pudding it felt like, her eyes suddenly feeling so heavy they might as well have been tied to bricks themselves. She absently felt her arms being held against the wall as the leader ducked in. Buffy kicked her leg out, catching his shin. He grunted, grabbing her limbs and using his body to nail her to the wall._

_"Get off," Buffy bit out through gritted teeth, wrenching her arms, the muscles in her shoulders burning. She slipped a wrist free, scratching at anything she could find before the leader slammed her wrist back into the wall, digging her bony wrist against the rough brick. She gasped in pain._

_"I don't think so, sweetie," he breathed, his breath dancing across her face. Buffy felt bile rising in the back of her throat at what the rank breath promised, the breath of a thousand other victims having slid down his gullet. He inhaled deeply. "The rain is making you smell… so, so delicious."_

_Buffy closed her eyes, something hot and panicked burning through her limbs. She was ready to shove her forehead into his nose, not ready to give up or fail even if it meant a five second window to run… _

_But then the weight of the leader was gone._

_Buffy inhaled sharply at the sudden loss, breathing in the dead dust, making her cough. It stuck to her skin as the one on her right suddenly burst into dust as well and she fell to the ground as her third captor turned to whoever had come to her aid._

_Wiping her eyes, Buffy saw a man wearing a soaking leather jacket move quickly and silently as two of the vamps advanced. She didn't pause to wonder who he was, what he was doing there and how he knew how to handle a stake so well… Instead, she jumped to her feet, ignoring the shrieking pain in her body as she tackled one of them from behind._

_And then it was a blur._

_She remembered yelling for a stake countless times, demanding one. She heard someone asking her what the hell she was doing before her vampire gained the upper hand on her and that same someone cursing. And then a stake appeared in her hand and suddenly she was straddling the vamp and she was shoving the sharp wood through his chest plate._

_The ease of pushing the wood through the flesh and muscle, cracking it through the bone and into his heart was delicious in her hands; her body moved on muscle memory as a rush of images bombarded her mind of doing this exact thing, hundreds and hundreds of times over. A burst of euphoria exploded in her chest when the vampire turned to dust beneath her and she landed on the hard wet concrete with a loud smack. She turned to look over her shoulder as the last two were dusted._

_The man was wiping his hands off on his jacket as he came towards her. She still sat crouched on the ground, the adrenaline from the fight roaring through her body, feeling like she was going to keel over. He was soaking wet as he reached her, holding out his hand._

_"You okay?"_

_She could barely hear him over the static in her head. Buffy stared at the offer, breathing hard. Her eyelids were heavy from the rain still cascading down like a waterfall. Her mind was firing blanks, trying to think past how much she was starting to shake, as she tried to put two and two together._

_Vampire attack. Vampire attack. Vampire attack._

_Before the mystery guy could ask again, she lifted her shaking hand and placed it in his, using his strength to help lift her back to her feet. She didn't move or say anything and he shook his head._

_"Christ," he mumbled under his breath before he tugged her into a covered doorway, the same place the vampires had held her down. She stared at the ground absently as the guy pulled something from his back pocket. "Look at me."_

_Moving like a robot, Buffy did as he said. A handsome, worn face stared back at her. He had a bruised eye from where a vampire had hit him and a cut lip. He was squinting at her, trying to see something she couldn't as the pain finally started registering. She closed her eyes in a wince. She didn't see the handkerchief in his hand until he pressed it against her temple and then her nose._

"_Hey, keep those eyes open," he ordered, his face set in a hard frown. Buffy did as he said, staring at his nose, vaguely noting the way the rain water emphasized the freckles that littered the skin there before realizing why she could see them at all._

_They were standing near a streetlight._

_God, had she almost died that close to civilization? People continued to move about like nothing in the world was wrong. Like she hadn't almost died just three feet away. Like she hadn't spent who the hell knows how long fighting and nobody came… until…_

_The handkerchief swiped against her chin again and Buffy felt it mopping up her congealing blood. "Hey, you okay?"_

"_Yeah," she managed, her voice a croak. Looking down at her sweater, she saw a large tear across her chest, smudges from the dirt-laced ground. Shifting her feet, she felt the tears in her jeans at her inner thighs again and a rush of horror flooded her body._

* * *

I didn't really want to do anything but throw up everything I'd ever eaten. I was in total shock. I was having a hard time understanding how I had let any of it happen in the first place.

I knew. I had always known what went bump in the night and I had turned my back on it. Pretended like it didn't exist, like it had never existed.

And it came back with a vengeance to rival white pants on Labor Day.

* * *

"_Mind explaining how you know how to kill vampires?" the stranger asked, his eyes narrowed. Buffy met his stare, her own blank and her face slack. It didn't occur to her how silly it was that some random human guy was asking her how she knew how to slay vampires…_

_She was just... there. She felt empty. Like a wisp of wind could blow right past them and she would get swept up in the breeze, disappearing forever..._

_She didn't reply; she stepped away. Shaking her head to the tune of her thoughts, she looked around, her mind filling in the blank spots on the ground with what had just happened - right over there, she had cracked one of the vampire's heads against a trash can and right there, she had felt every bone in her hand turn to liquid lava as another vamp had twisted her around - before she found her purse._

_Buffy didn't think as she grabbed it, ignoring a popping twinge in her elbow. She headed towards the mouth of the alley, ignoring her savior, feeling like the rain was filling the inside of her skull, clouding her brain's ability to work._

_"Hey!" he barked._

_The mystery man's stare drilled a hole in her back and she looked over her shoulder, catching his eye where he stood, the bloody handkerchief still in his hands as he studied her. For a split second, Buffy felt like everything rumbling around inside her head was visible for him to see. He was looking at her like he knew everything going on inside and he understood, but he was also… pitying her._

_Where she should have felt something in reaction - maybe a rush of anger or some humor - she felt nothing._

_She was numb._

_An eternity passed. Their gazes stayed locked, secrets that had no business being near her anymore passing between them as the numbing in her chest started thawing, something in his gaze making everything feel too real… Suddenly the air felt too heavy to breath, the rain felt like little spikes slamming into her overly sensitive skin, the wounds she had won felt like fire dancing across her body… until a taxi roared by, shooting water from the street onto the sidewalk, startling her._

_One more glance at him as he took a step towards her and she turned away and ran._

* * *

I ran until I got home. I ran upstairs. It took me five minutes to get my hands calm enough to open the door, I kept dropping the damn keys. I shoved it closed behind me so hard I'm pretty sure I cracked the jamb.

I'll never forget what stared back at me in the mirror that night. I was destroyed. Covered in blood. My nose was already swelling, my eyes getting black like a homicidal raccoon's. A large scratch was already drying on my temple and my jaw was bruised straight to hell. I was a mess and my body felt worse.

I couldn't comprehend how I had gone from one thing - drinking beer, laughing and running in the rain so carefree - into something so completely different; I had stepped into death without any warning.

I took a shower, I cleaned it all off; I threw away my clothes and turned off all the lights. I just sat in bed, curled up so tight in the comforter I was suffocating. I couldn't stop shaking, no matter how hard I tried to level my breathing or still my own skin. It was on its own rollercoaster from hell and I couldn't get it back to the land of calm.

I don't think I had ever been so terrified in my life. Which always wigs me when I think about it that way because I've been up against things so much worse, so much more worthy of the terror.

I had always been this person, this person who had never not had the luxury of knowing I could handle anything anyone threw my way... but that night? I had failed. I had almost died.

Which, for someone who has died a few times, shouldn't have freaked me out as much as it did. But I was. To the nth degree.

Just like with the power thing, it took me a long time to realize what was happening. I was totally wigged, but I was also so jazzed I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I had felt _alive_ that night. So alive, in such a dark and primordial way - something stronger than anything I had ever felt before - that it was freaking me the heck out. It was more intense than anything I'd felt in my slaying career and I'm sure it's easy to assume the why of that - burying things under mounds of denial has a way of dulling things…

My phone almost rattled off the table from text messages and phone calls, but I ignored them. I heard everyone coming in a few hours later. I kept still when Ted checked on me. I listened to them for a while before he came back to bed. I was wide awake when he got in, curling around me with a deep sigh. I remember he squeezed my waist and I almost dug my nails through my hand from the pain in my ribs. He whispered my name, but I didn't say anything. Eventually he fell asleep.

I didn't.

Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw that man in the alleyway's eyes. I didn't see the vampires, I didn't feel the way my own blood choked me, I didn't relive the fear that my life was almost over… I saw him watching me, seeing something that I hadn't seen in a long time.

And it scared me.

* * *

_The sky was still dark outside the next morning as Buffy lifted Ted's arm away from her. Twisting around, she gently set it down in her empty spot, adjusting the blankets around him. He didn't budge, his mouth open in a snore and for a second, Buffy just stared at him, feeling a strange disconnection._

_Not strange, really. It was a familiar sensation, one she hadn't felt in so long, it was close to being foreign again. She hadn't felt it since Sunnydale, since the night everyone had turned her out and she had wandered around aimlessly until Spike found her._

_Part of being the Slayer was disconnecting from the harsh crap to make rational decisions, the kind of decisions that a normal person wouldn't want to make. Something nobody but Spike had been able to understand… or the mystery guy in the alley apparently although she was beginning to wonder if she had really seen everything she thought she had._

_He had just looked like he… knew what was going on inside her head._

_The disconnect was saving her from the feeling of wiggins. Somewhere in the middle of the night, with Ted wrapped around her and her mind back in that alley, the disconnect had come and she had felt the most satisfying level of calm take her._

_Buffy made her way to the bathroom, shutting the door before she snapped on the light to check the damage. The swelling was already gone. The cut on her temple had closed and was coming close to being a little pink line. The only tell-tale sign anything major had happened was the sallow color in the corners of her eyes, where the bruises were working on fading._

_Buffy took a deep breath, feeling only a faint twinge in her side. She lifted her leg, twisting her knee and only felt a little grinding in her knee cap._

_Alright, so the Slayer healing still worked._

_Check in the column of positive things learned, she supposed._

_Bracing herself on the sink, Buffy stared at herself. She looked tired. She looked sad. She looked... hollow. She looked like she used to look in her last few years in Sunnydale. Like someone waging a serious internal battle and drowning._

Or someone who had just gotten the biggest punch in the face from sassy Life.

_But this hollowness was her fault, wasn't it? She had let herself go, let herself believe she could live a life that didn't involve anything that went bump in the night. Her life in New York was sunshine and roses, a world where the meaning of life involved a lot of coffee, art, beer and laughter. Not darkness, blood and stakes. Not pain and bruises in the morning after ramming your fist into dead or scaly flesh all night._

_Not the life of a Slayer. That wasn't her anymore…_

_So what about last night? What about the five vampires that would have killed her, a faceless person in Manhattan, a faceless Slayer who had let her abilities go lax until they felt like they were non-existent?_

_Her mind was in revolt. Turning on the faucet to ice cold, she ducked down, splashing her face until it was numb._

_No. No, last night had been a freak accident. Something that, yes, theoretically she should have been prepared for, but wasn't. Next time, that wouldn't happen. She still had her weapons chest sitting around somewhere, she'd just start keeping a stake in her purse at all times again. Back to the "new age defense weapon" shtick._

_For the just in case._

_For the random freak accidents._

_Just for the what-if's, nothing more._

_And the man who had saved her? What about him…_

_Wasn't he just evidence that she didn't need to take up the mantle again?_

_The world still had protectors out there… her time of servitude had passed._

* * *

Do I sound like I was in denial?

Because I totally was.

I went to work sans lucky power suit that morning and we still landed the new client. I swept everything under the rug. Like it hadn't happened. Like I hadn't spent the entire night shivering so badly from the huge chasm of despair and self-questioning that had suddenly opened up between my lives.

But I'm just spoiling the story for you again now, so let's move on.

I told Ted that I had tripped on my way to the dry cleaner's and fell pretty hard and that I just went to bed. That I didn't want to worry anyone.

That I was fine.

Dandy. Normal. Sane. Healthy... or whatever.

Guess how long that lasted? About one week.

Unfortunately for my sanity it wasn't something as obvious as me recognizing what I really wanted and going out and doing the Slayer Lambada. No, it started out easy and ignorable: dreams. Part of the slaying gig is the dreams - the prophetic ones, the scary ones, the blah-blah-vampire-blah-blah-blood-blah-blah ones...

But like I said, ignorable, right?

It wasn't until I saw him again that the sunshine and roses started turning into black goopy piles of something not-rose-like.

Because something had happened that night. Something I couldn't explain. I didn't want to explain it. Something I had spent a considerable amount of time and energy completely ignoring, and winning at the game of You No Existy.

It was just a glimpse outside of Zibetto's; a glimpse out the corner of my eye. It was night and I was heading back with Lily after a mini shopping spree when I saw him standing in a doorway across the street, doing the cool James Dean routine. I stopped, Lily bouncing ahead of me as I met his gaze.

For the first time since that night, I saw him. I was annoyed to find that he was pretty damn attractive in one of those seriously annoying and dangerous sort of ways. A way that said, "No, I don't think so, Buck-o, not for you. I'm too cool for school and while I'm at it, I'll slay vampires like a cool guy." Or something. I was still working on my quips.

But he was also tired. Like life had handed him a couple of shots of crap and he had swallowed them without reserve.

I remember feeling a whole bucket-load of anxiety in my chest - you know that weird feeling when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar or see something you thought wasn't real? That feeling. But he didn't budge. And neither did I. So we did the stare-if-you-dare dance when he offered a sarcastic smile that hinted at him finding something about me far funnier than I would have liked and I was just at the point of talking myself into just walking across the damn street when Lily's head popped back around the corner.

"Buffy? You coming?"

"Yeah," I had answered immediately, shoving an everything's-fine smile on my face before turning back to the shadowy doorway. And wouldn't you know it? James Dean was gone.

The irresistible urge to either try to find him or bash my head into a wall was pretty overwhelming, but I ignored it. I pretended like it hadn't happened. And I grabbed Lily's hand and we kept on going to MacLaren's.

After that, things really did start to get back to normal. The dreams stopped, the restlessness stopped. The disconnect went away and I was living happy as a clam in my life all over again. I felt better when the trash went out with my destroyed clothes. I even threw away the purse I had had that night and reevaluated the truth of my power suit being lucky or not.

Until he came back, six weeks later.


	3. Chapter Three - June 2014

**Chapter Three - June 2014 (seven weeks later)**

_the dogs of war don't negotiate  
__the dogs of war won't capitulate  
__they will take and you will give  
__and you must die so they may live_

"_I cannot believe those words just left your mouth."_

"_Believe it, my friend."_

"_You literally leave nothing to the imagination!"_

_Barney made a face. "Uh... yeah. Duh. Look who you're talking to."_

_Marshall Eriksen dropped his palm on their table, making a face at Ted as he slid into the booth with two drinks. "Ted, you're with me on this. Princess Leia was totally hotter in A New Hope than Return of the Jedi."_

"_Whoa," Ted said, sliding the slender glass of wine to Buffy who smiled at him. He grinned back before turning to Marshall. "Which outfits are we talking about, the braless silky white dress or the gold-jeweled Jabba bikini?"_

"_Dude," Marshall said patiently. "There's no question in anyone's mind... well, except for Barney's, obviously... that she was hotter braless."_

"_I don't know, I was kinda partial to her in Return of the Jedi," Lily piped in and Marshall shot her an incredulous look._

"_What? Baby, come on."_

"_What? It was all the sparklies against Jabba's big ol' lizard body." Lily grinned. "It was pretty."_

"_Okay, well, we're not talking about pretty, we're talking about bras."_

_Buffy shook her head, taking a sip of her wine, her eyes flying over the crowd in the bar. It was full for a Tuesday night. The only downside was that they wouldn't get the free platter of old hot wings at the end of the night, but it did always making everything more interesting when it came to anything Barney-related. They had only been there for an hour and he had already gotten two numbers - one of which turned out to be a pastrami shop near Times Square - and shot down three times._

"_An important distinction, Aldrin, get it together," Barney piped in before smiling. "Although the jewels were pretty."_

"_Why is it always about the bra?" Robin mused. "You know they are designed as support systems, not male ogling tools."_

"_A fine point," Barney responded, lifting a finger for emphasis, his voice on the verge of some epiphany that probably had no basis in logic._

_Buffy's eyes danced over to the bar near the front door as someone else joined the fray from the chilly spring weather outside when she spotted a familiar face._

_Her heart stopped cold in its tracks, the noises of the bar and the conversation around her fading into white noise as she felt the blood leak from her face. She watched Carl nodding his head in time with what he was saying before they slapped hands together and he left a few bills in his place. She watched him as he glanced to his left, like he was waiting for someone… Then those eyes were drilling right into hers like they had that night… that night that was supposed to be buried and dead in the Did Not Exist graveyard in her head._

_The look lasted a split second before he turned away. Buffy felt the rush of cold air as someone else left the bar. She watched him set down his empty glass, nodding to Carl again like they knew each other or some crazy crap before leaving the bar without a backward glance._

_The blood that had been leeched from her face came back in a hot rush and her cheeks burned as she closed her eyes, bowing her head. A thousand knives were stabbing at her chest as she felt the pull in her body to get up and follow him. Follow him where exactly? And say what?_

_'Hey, what's up, why you here, are you following me and how the hell do you know about vampires? Not that I care or anything but it seems kind of important since you killed a bunch and saved my life or whatever and now you're randomly popping up like some mysterious cool guy who…'_

"_I'll be right back," Buffy mumbled, shoving her purse to the ground and getting up. She didn't hear if anyone responded or acknowledged her as she headed blindly to the exit, her eyes glued to the muddy glass at the front of the bar, seeing nothing. Buffy pushed through the door, her heels slapping against the stairs as she raced up to the street and looked around._

_For a split second, she felt those knives in her chest turn lethal-er when she realized he was gone until she saw a shadow in the alley across the street._

_Buffy didn't think twice as she followed, stepping into the light traffic, ignoring the honking horn of a car speeding by. She didn't see the couple on the other side, her shoulder slamming into theirs and curse words trailing behind her as she stepped into the alley._

_A vice grip of uncertainty closed around her chest and she paused, her breathing picking up. It was dark and a splash of images tackled her mind from the night when she had been attacked. Her shoulder ached where the one had yanked her back and she felt the deep burn of dread as she remembered them scratching at her thighs, pulling her shirt down, exposing her._

* * *

The notion of a Slayer being afraid of the dark was silly, especially one who used to stroll right in and say, "Hey, what's with the shadow of doom look going on here, haven't you heard a few accent lamps can change the entire mood of a room?"

That didn't make the terror at the thought of facing that darkness again after so many years any less real…

* * *

_Buffy's arms came up to protect herself against the shadows in her mind when the sound of flesh hitting flesh pulled her back to the present and she saw them just as a dark hulk came stumbling towards her._

_Her instinctual reaction was much quicker this time. She sidestepped the human being falling back, letting him fall to the ground with a loud exhale of pain and she stepped up as the vampire came roaring through the darkness, his lips pulled back to show off his shiny canines. She grabbed the lapels of his shirt, using his momentum and turning to throw him against the brick wall._

_A rush of exhilaration flooded her system as the vamp flew through the air, an easy six feet, and slammed head first into the building. Everything was moving in the familiar slow motion of an adrenaline rush as the sickening crunch of the vampire's cranium creaking under the assault registered before his body hit the ground like wet meat._

_Buffy didn't feel her lungs burning from breathing too fast or the shaking in her arms from the adrenaline; instead she felt the pull of intuition telling her to move and she was already turning as the mystery man behind her reached to grab her. He found her forearm, yanking her. Buffy reeled with the move, pulling her arm back to punch him in the face but he jerked back just in time._

_The next moment was a blur as Buffy moved in to attack him again._

_She didn't know what it was or why she really wanted to hit him and she didn't care. Her body sang with the art of the kill again as she moved, knowing only that she felt something threatening in this alleyway. She didn't care that it wasn't from the man she was currently trying to take down and that it was the vampire gaining consciousness behind her._

_The mystery man represented something - something she had tried for a long time to let go of. The faux threat he had posed in her mind ever since the night she had almost died - since the night everything that had been perfect had blown up in tiny life smithereens - burst to the top of her list of priorities and all she cared about was making him hurt._

* * *

Another one of those times where, now that I'm thinking about it, I was more mad that he had brought the supernatural world back to my doorstep. That my world had somehow been tainted after that night, even though it was the vampires and not him. That he had brought something dark back into my world of bright and shiny things…

Really, who the hell did he think he was?

He was every shade of grey ever and my black and white world was getting charcoaled to death.

* * *

_Buffy caught his chin with her knuckles as he grabbed her around the waist to subdue her. She heard him yelling something at her but she didn't pause. Grabbing his jacket for leverage, Buffy spun him away where he stumbled against an empty doorway. Buffy stalked after him, ready to grab him and swing him around to join the vampire still moaning on the ground behind them when he charged her._

_His body was like a brick wall on its own as he slammed into her, knocking the air out of her lungs and they landed in a tangle of limbs on the ground. He was growling something as she struggled underneath him. She whipped her arms out, catching his jaw again before his fist found her wrist and held it down as she jerked her body against his to buck him off._

_"Knock it off!" he snapped but she didn't listen. He was here to ruin things. That was the only explanation. He was bringing the darkness back into her life and she wanted nothing to do with. Ever again. Never… "Hey!"_

_"Get off!" Buffy snarled. She shoved her hands against his chest and he rocketed off of her, his back hitting the ground with a rush as she rolled back to her feet. He was moving too, getting to his feet quickly although she could see the strain in his face. Good. Pain was good. "Who are you?"_

_"Get the hell down, lady," he bit out, moving to shove her to the side but she stepped in his path, not realizing she was indirectly protecting the vampire starting to come back to life behind her._

_"No-" He didn't give her a second. One minute she was ready to grab his jacket and bowl him over again when he grabbed her arms and tried to swing her away. She spun with it, grabbing his jacket and ramming her palm into his nose. A dam broke and she felt the hot blood rushing into her hand as he cursed loudly over the sound of his nose cracking, letting her go._

_Buffy anticipated him spinning away from her, an instinctual move to protect his face from further damage, but he once again surprised her. Instead of doing the normal thing, his fist slammed into her temple._

_Fireworks erupted in her eyes and her ankles gave as she slumped against him. She felt him holding her up, his arms like bands of strength keeping her from falling. She tried to push past the irresistible urge to lie down and it turned into a strange out-of-body experience as he struggled to set her down without dropping her._

_And then he cursed, letting her slip to the ground. The jolt pushed her back into reality. He spun away and she felt the loose gravel on the concrete kick into her face from his boot as he faced the vampire._

_And like the snap of a rubber band of reality, James Dean didn't matter anymore._

_Vampire. Vampire. Vampire._

_The sensation of a butcher's knife stabbing her skull from his temple hit was overwhelming as she tried to roll to her feet, tried to find the target her body knew was right there. Ignoring the pain, Buffy's eyes snapped open. She heard her mystery man and the vampire trading blows, grunts of pain and whooshes of breath bouncing off the brick. Her senses were in a tizzy as she remembered the vampire…_

_Rolling to her hands and knees, Buffy grabbed onto the closest thing to help her find her feet. Something that happened to have a rotted wooden pallet sitting on top of it. Buffy rammed her fist into the pallet, breaking off the corner. Another hit got her a piece sharp enough to do what she needed._

_Buffy turned in time to see the vamp shoving her guy away. Instead of face-planting into the wall, he used it to ricochet himself off and turn and slam his fist into the vampire's face, which sent him tripping over his feet and sending him straight towards her._

_Buffy grabbed the vampire's shoulder, stopping his momentum abruptly. She felt her balance give for a split second before she found her center; she felt the chill of the night warring with the faux heat of the vampire's breath as he snapped at her and Buffy shoved the wood into his chest._

_He burst into dust with a loud pop. She took a deep breath as his body disintegrated, her hand squeezing the stake until she felt a splinter from the crappy wood carve a place in her palm… when the guy she had originally been chasing got right in her face._

_"What the hell was that?" he snapped, yanking the wood from her hand and throwing it down the alley._

_Buffy shook her head, staring at him. Her thoughts were still doing a weird tribal dance on a trampoline from the shot he had landed on her temple but she was aware enough to realize he wasn't exactly being grateful._

_"What the hell was what?" she asked. "I just saved you from that vampire turning your head into a party hat."_

_He opened his mouth to reply before snapping it shut, shaking his head at her in disbelief. He wiped his face with his jacket sleeve, the same leather jacket he had been wearing from the other night. It didn't do much but smear blood all over his face._

_"No, hey, I have a better question," Buffy snapped, the anger towards him coming back and the need to understand what the hell he was doing burned hot in the spot where he had punched her. The urge to start hitting him again blazed inside her, blowing through the fog. "How about why the hell are you following me?"_

_"What?"_

_"Showing up at where I get my coffee and now you're at my house? What's next, pulp or no pulp in my orange juice? How many calories were in my muffin this morning?"_

_"Whoa, hold on a minute there, sister," he said gruffly, his voice getting darker as he dropped his bloody hand to stare at her. "You think I'm following you?"_

_"If the black hat fits."_

_"That's rich," he snorted as he yanked a handkerchief from his back pocket. The same one that he had pressed to her wounds that night. Buffy didn't like the tight feeling in her stomach as she watched him wipe up the blood, like she should just shut her mouth or something. Like she was wrong. She swallowed, pushing the feeling down as he pointed in the direction of MacLaren's. "Not that it's any of your goddamn business but I was getting a beer. And doing a friend a favor since you're obviously slacking around here."_

_"Excuse me?"_

_"Vampire, blondie," he snapped, waving at the dust pile between them. "That thing you just staked? Or don't they teach Slayers that kinda thing anymore?" The world stopped spinning and Buffy felt her lungs seize. Everything organ-related inside her suddenly dropped like she was falling. He knew what she was. "And that coffee bar was a coincidence. I don't have any damn reason to be following you, princess."_

_"What did you say?" she asked, breathless._

_He glared at her. "It was a coincidence." He mopped at his face again, checking his nose with the other hand as he shook his head. "And thanks for the unneeded kill, that was awesome. I didn't ask for your help and you sure as hell didn't do me any favors." He shook the bloody cloth out as he continued on, "Kind of wanted that one alive, but who the hell cares, right?"_

_"No…" she said. She stared at him. "You said… you said Slayer."_

_He didn't miss a beat. He shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket, sniffling up the rest of the blood. The sound was wet and gunky and it made her stomach turn._

_He gestured at her, his voice mocking, "If the freakishly skinny pants fit."_

_"How…" Buffy shook her head, the alleyway starting to spin. How had something as simple as a vampire attack turned into something so much more… what? Dangerous? Terrifying? Breathing was starting to get hard again as Buffy closed her eyes. "How do you know-"_

_"Hey," he said, his voice sharp. He held up both hands with an empty smile but the anger was vivid underneath the happy sheen. "Whatever. Vamp dead, unneeded favor done. How about next time you pick up some of the slack so I don't have to come around here anymore with your freaky stalker accusations, huh? Sounds good to me."_

_He didn't wait for a reply. He turned away, mumbling something under his breath as he felt his nose again and Buffy stood still for a second, ignoring the dick way he had just talked to her._

_He knew what she was. He knew. How the hell did he know what she was? A thousand scenarios were spinning through her mind like butterflies on crack. Was he stalking her because she was a Slayer? He could say no all he wanted but that didn't mean he wasn't actually there for her. Was the vampire a diversion? Was it a reason to draw her out? Was there someone bigger and badder behind this random guy? It wouldn't be the first time some big baddy used the darker side of humanity for its evil bidding._

_How did he know where to find her? How did he know anything about her at all?_

_"Hey!" she yelled, running after him. He didn't stop and she saw him shaking his head as he neared the other end of the alley. She grabbed his shoulder, stopping him roughly and he practically snarled as she yanked him back into the darkness. "I don't think so, buddy. How about you explain what the hell is going on. You appear out of nowhere and you know what I am and I'm supposed to be okay with you prancing in and out like this?"_

_"Are you serious?"_

_"What's the deal, huh?" she continued, her voice acidic. She crossed her arms. "Who's pulling the strings? I'm right here, you might as well get whatever the hell you have planned out of the way so I can get back to my life." He just stared at her like she was the stupid one, his mouth gaped as he processed her words and Buffy rolled her eyes. "Wow, cut you to the quick so soon. You really thought I'd buy this random Joe-schmoe business?"_

_"Wow," was all he said. His shoulders jerked with a silent chuckle as he turned to walk back towards MacLaren's. Buffy grabbed him again but he reacted this time. Buffy didn't expect him to move so quickly as he spun into her grip, grabbing her arm and yanking her against his chest, curling her arm around her back and trapping her other between them._

_"Hey, let go of me!"_

_"Stop hitting me," he growled, abruptly letting her go and Buffy stumbled back. He glared at her and she glared back. "I save your ass and this is the shit I'm getting. You are one screwed chick, you know that?"_

"_I didn't ask for your help that night, or don't you remember showing up out of the random blue? If that was supposed to placate me having you around every other day, try again, buddy." The anger filling her felt good. It felt warm and familiar._

"_What..." He laughed incredulously. "Are you… Are you crazy?"_

"_Me?"_

"_How happy would you be with those bloodsuckers using your thigh bones to clean out their teeth, huh?" he asked, his voice almost smug and Buffy felt her heart leap into her throat as he continued, stalking towards her now. She backed away as his eyes darkened and focused on her with frightening intensity and for a moment she was just a girl, in an alley with a scary guy coming at her. "I know I walked in on a Slayer about to die that night, getting her ass handed to her because she didn't know which end of the stupid stick she was holding."_

_Buffy gritted her teeth, her stomach dropping again at that word. "You don't know anything about me."_

"_I know you're the one who got herself trapped in a vamp sandwich. Not me."_

"_Then what the hell are you doing here?" she asked, her voice rough. She felt the ball of emotions roiling inside and climbing up her gullet._

"_I was here because a vamp was making this street its own personal buffet line," he said, taking measured steps closer, towards her. "You're the one who came tearing out here like a bat out of hell. I was fine leaving things the way they were. You're acting like I dragged your ass out here, like I threw it down that alley in the first place. A guy wants a beer and suddenly I'm creeping up your ass for your bra size when in reality…" He threw his arms out. "I just wanted a goddamn beer."_

_Buffy felt like throwing up at the stomach acid rollercoaster ripping through her chest, the feeling that… she didn't even know - it was something ominous, something dark and dank and heavy and… This man was trouble and seeing him in her bar? In her place, the one place where the world he clearly represented was so not welcome? Where death and gruesome things were a different lifetime, a different place, everything different and so not what he life was about now…_

_Buffy closed her eyes. Her thoughts and emotions were moving too fast to focus on - she went from confused to angry to freaking out to wanting to run away to wanting to fight… _

_He didn't stop, coming closer and she took a step back in reaction. "Don't come at me because your head lives in your ass. Your life is your life. You don't want to help people? That's your gig, and definitely not my friggin' problem. So hop back into your little Stepford life in there and stay the hell out of my way. And while you're at it, avoid the stalker accusations, sweetheart. It's pathetic."_

_Buffy scoffed, shaking her head in numb amazement. Was this happening?_

_He made a mocking face in return before narrowing his eyes. "Let's try this again. I'm gonna go that way," he said, pointing towards the end of the alley before pointing towards MacLaren's, "and you go that way." And then he was off._

_Buffy stood in the alley, her arms dangling uselessly at her sides. She crossed her arms, her lungs feeling like they were full of quicksand as she watched him walk away from her and she felt the angry sting in her nails from where she was digging them into her forearm. He reached the mouth of the alley, never once bothering to look back to make sure she wasn't chasing him down, when she said, "Stay away from me!"_

"_I was never freaking near you," he replied, his voice sharp as it echoed against the craggy brick walls back to her._

_And then he was gone._

* * *

I stood there for about fifteen minutes, just staring at the wall, trying to put things in order. But nothing was going in order. I eventually headed back to MacLaren's, ready to put it all back inside the shiny new box in my head labeled 'No.'

But not before picking up the nearest trash bag and throwing it against the wall… where it promptly burst open and covered me in rotted fruit.

Thanks, universe.

And how does the universe repay me?

It was giftwrapped and hand-delivered to me two nights later.


	4. Chapter Four - June 2014

**Chapter Four - June 2014 (two days later) **

_backyard people and they work all day  
__tired of the speeches  
__and the way that the reasons keep changin'  
__just to make the words rhyme_

"_Oh my god," Robin said slowly, shaking her head as she licked her lips, staring at the bar. Buffy barely glanced up, playing with the condensation rings on the table as they waited for the rest of the group. All Buffy could concentrate on was how the circles never seemed to break… they just went with the flow, creating new ones in opposition of the damage her finger was doing. She hated the stupid condensation rings. "Buffy, this is one you don't ignore."_

_Buffy grunted._

_Robin didn't seem to notice. "That's fine," she said dreamily. "God, he kind of reminds me of Simon." Buffy finally looked up, watching Robin shift in her seat before biting her lower lip. "And Simon was… not… well, he was…"_

_Buffy lifted an eyebrow, waiting for a response, overly aware of how very out of character she was right now and how little she cared. She just wanted to… brood. Put her vampire-with-a-soul cap on. She wasn't in the mood for anything else tonight, much less Robin waxing poetry over some poor schmuck. Especially one that reminded her of the Loser Wagon Simon._

"_What? There's nothing wrong with vicariously living through someone else to relive the highlights of what could have been a really awesome thing," Robin replied before looking away. After a long pause, her eyes drifted back towards the bar. "Trust me, there is really, really nothing wrong with it."_

_With a sigh that was borderline overly aggravated, Buffy turned. And stiffened, inhaling quickly as she saw James Dean sitting at the bar… almost identical to what had happened two nights earlier. She gaped, shock flooding her chest followed quickly by everything she had shoved away a few nights ago and had decided should never be analyzed._

_This freaking guy. This freaking stupid freaking dumb guy._

"_Are you freaking kidding me?" she whispered, watching as he was once again talking to Carl. He had a dark-colored beer sitting in front of him, mostly empty… just like two nights ago. And just like two nights ago, he dropped a few bills on the counter, nodding to something that Carl was saying. They seemed to be something akin to genuine friends or something judging by the way they were acting. She watched Carl nod his head towards the entrance and the mystery guy follow the nod discreetly._

_What. The. Hell. Was. This._

"_Was I right?" she heard Robin saying and Buffy was loathe to turn away, but she forced herself to. She turned back to Robin, a tight smile on her face as she managed a small nod, but she didn't see Robin. She didn't see the bar, the stupid condensation rings or the moldy-looking nachos. Every sense in her body was tuned into James Dean and for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt her Slayer senses dancing to life on their own._

* * *

Two days was apparently plenty of time to become super levelheaded about the mystery guy. Practice makes perfect, right? Well I was getting my feet wet again with the world of the weird and this sudden appearance by James Dean wasn't pushing my 'That's Weird, Ask Me How' button like it had before.

You can already see where this is going, can't you?

* * *

_What was he doing here? And what did he have to do with Carl? Was Carl in on this? And what did it have to do with her? A small voice in the back of her head told her she was being ridiculous, but was she? Why else would he be there? She hadn't heard about anything weird or supernatural-y happening around here, and she would have definitely noticed. Manhattan had had a sincerely low supernatural kill-rate by her estimation… at least the times she paid attention._

_Which she had been paying attention… right?_

_Buffy didn't see Lily and Marshall joining them at the table. She didn't hear what they said or listen as Robin pointed out James Dean or as Lily made a comment that was the perfect Lily thing to say: lewd while sounding innocent._

_The only thing Buffy heard was the sound of heavy boots hitting the floor, heading towards the exit. She risked a glance towards the door, watched him leave, once again not sparing a look behind him. And just like two nights earlier, she didn't bother to think._

"_I gotta go… do… something," she said, barely managing to get it out before she was up and flying towards the door._

_She missed Lily's words, "She's kinda getting into that weird habit where she just… poof."_

"_Definitely going into overtime with the mystery girl thing," Marshall replied._

_She didn't stick around for the rest. Buffy's heels slapped against the concrete stairs as she followed him out of the bar._

"_Hey!" she said, her voice bouncing out into the street, calling attention from everyone on the block but she didn't care. He paused, bowing his head before looking over his shoulder. "You have got some serious nerve."_

_He didn't reply, turning slowly, looking amused._

_She threw her hands up. "Really, nothing to say?"_

"_What the hell am I supposed to say?" he drawled back, smirking at her. "How 'bout a 'here we go again'? Does that sound alright?"_

"_Actually, what sounds about right is fessing up," she replied hotly, stalking towards him. He backed up with his hands up, the amusement never leaving his face. "Spit it out, stalker boy."_

"_Stalker boy?" he echoed. Buffy's fingers curled into a fist and this time he did stop abruptly, his face all business. "I'm here for a vamp. Again."_

"_Right," Buffy sneered._

"_No, I'm telling the God's honest truth here," he said sincerely. Gone was the abraded man from a few nights ago; in his place was someone calmer… someone easier to believe. Buffy didn't believe it for a second. He gestured to the bar. "Doing that favor that I thought I had taken care of a few days ago. Turns out that little problem was actually a dual problem. I'm here to take care of the rest."_

_Buffy moved to reply but he didn't give her a chance, waving his hand between them in a cutting gesture as he smirked coldly._

"_But not that you care, right?" His voice was deadly calm, his eyes dead-set on her as he talked. "You who sit around, yucking it up with your buddies, letting innocent people die just a few feet away." Buffy's stomach dropped at his words. What was he talking about? But she didn't rise to the bait. He continued, stepping closer and Buffy reciprocated in the opposite direction, stepping back as he advanced. "So while you're in there arguing about the benefits of boxers vs. briefs, I'm out here doing your job. So how about you return that favor and leave me to my business." _

_Buffy felt anything resembling words dying in her throat as he stared down at her. He was talking at her like he knew exactly what she was doing, like he knew exactly why she was out here chasing him around, like he knew exactly what she was avoiding and that all of this was just her… being avoidy. It was unnerving and she felt a sting travel across her skin that made her head ache._

_This was probably the right moment to do something along the lines of yelling at him or slapping him. Play the part, do what she went out there to do, tell him to leave her alone… Because really, where did he come off? He was the one showing up in random places, not her. This was her city, not his. This was her bar, just like it had been her coffee shop, her sidewalk, her… Buffy felt the weight of his stare on her face as she tried to process his words, his tone, his silent accusations... She didn't know what to say. She hadn't known what to say when she had followed him out here and she didn't like the way he was talking at her like she was the moron._

_The anger she had so self-righteously felt a minute ago had left nothing behind but an icy cavern in her body._

_She had a list in her head of things she should say, things that a normal person would say like… how dare he talk to her like this, like he knew her, knew her life… she'll call the cops if she sees him again because he was talking in a strange form of elfin gibberish… that he hadn't seen her throwing a two hundred pound vampire through the air that night, that she had been in shock, that adrenaline had replaced her blood, that she didn't remember any of it… she didn't even know what a vampire was, much less a Slayer and she had been caught between fifty shades of surprise when they had talked before, so leave her alone…_

_All the things she should say because she was normal. Because she had a normal life._

_But… she had nothing. So she said nothing._

* * *

Because he was right. It didn't matter how totally wigged I was that he was talking like we were old Slayer College buddies… he was right.

But see, here's something you've probably already guessed about me: I'm stubborn. And a lot of the time, not even on purpose.

* * *

_A pregnant pause filled the space between them, the tension thick enough to shave with rope._

"_You have got me curious though," he finally said when the only thing coloring the silence was dead air._

"_Curious?" Buffy spat, a feeling of relief spreading through her like warm water as the pressure valve from his words released. She felt that self-righteous anger coming right back. "I can't even begin to describe how much you're barking up the wrong tree."_

* * *

There you go, Buffy, that's the line you wanted…

* * *

_He took a step towards her before circling around her slowly. Buffy stayed still, feeling like he was sizing her up. She felt her back prickle where his eyes grazed across her shoulders and she tensed, ready for whatever he was going to throw at her._

"_Why would a Slayer who obviously knows a thing or two about vamps just sit around while they parade the streets, ripping everyone's throats out?"_

_Buffy frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about."_

_He smirked. "You're lying."_

"_Look who's talking," Buffy snapped back, instantly feeling like she was back in third grade the moment the words left her lips. He laughed and she bristled. "What the hell do you know about Slayers anyway? About vampires, about any of this?"_

_He nodded in time with her words, contemplating them before shrugging nonchalantly. Like they were talking about the benefits of blue cotton candy compared to pink. "I've been around a while. Bound to run into a few. Especially since the Slayer la revolución explosion a while back, you chicks are a dime a goddamn dozen anymore."_

* * *

You know black mold? It felt like I had black mold growing in my stomach.

* * *

"_Yeah… met one who kept calling vampires Cookie Monster and one covered in tattoos that turned out to have holy water in them, so whenever a vamp touched her, they'd burn. Pretty neat trick." Buffy couldn't even begin to describe the way her stomach was curdling into sour milk as he continued on. She found herself wondering who these girls were before reminding herself her due was done. She was out. And he had to get out too. "One girl thought she was the vampire messiah and another had some serious claws on her." Buffy couldn't help but flinch at his words, the innuendo all over them. "But I gotta say, I've never met one so deeply in denial as you are."_

"_You-"_

"_Especially to let three people die on her street without even raising a finger," he continued, ignoring her and Buffy's heart stopped._

"_What?"_

"_Hit a nerve?" he asked with an empty smile. "So is that why you sit around, doing nothing - you don't care?"_

"_You don't know anything about me," Buffy bit out, hating the way his words rang through her head like church bells. Was he telling the truth? Had she sat by and let people die, right here, so close to her? Hadn't she thought the same thing that night so long ago: people walking by while her life hung in the balance a few feet away, completely oblivious? "My life is none of your business."_

"_Funny how suddenly it's none of my business." He pointed at her. "You already made it my business when you almost died. And all over again by coming out here and attacking me about 'playing hero'." He broke out the sarcastic quotey fingers._

"_Well, I didn't die, did I?"_

"_Yeah, thanks to me."_

"_God, could you be more cocky?"_

_He smirked, his eyes casting a light shade of green when the Christmas lights up year round around the window of the bar caught them. Buffy locked her jaw as he stared at her, his eyes saying so much more._

_Buffy really, really wanted to punch him. Maybe it was the way his jacket lapels were jacked up or maybe it was that stupid smirk on his face or maybe she really could see how much he seemed to know about what went bump in the night and what it meant having a role in that… or it was probably the fact that he was pulling out all the stops on the "turn this around on Buffy" trip and that it was working… anyway you looked at it, he was seriously asking to get punched._

_Even as a long moment later his stance softened; even as he backed off, almost like he'd come to some conclusion about her that he wasn't willing to share._

_Which only pissed her off more. Who the hell was this guy? Who did he think he was and where the hell did he come off attacking her like he knew anything? He was the one appearing out of nowhere and he was the one spouting out what were probably lies._

* * *

Denial.

* * *

"_So what?" she asked, her arms swinging, her voice cracking as her mind spun through the possibility of people dying right outside her doorstep and she just stepped right over them. Her mouth moved without the go-ahead from her brain as she talked to talk. "You want a blood sample? You want a few pieces of hair for your stalker collection?"_

_He didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he backed up to the top of the short stack of stairs leading down to the bar. He angled his head, his eyes glued to the window. She stared at his back, wanting to move, wanting to act but unable to, like she was frozen. She was getting angry and she was getting pretty close to the freak-out edge, but she still waited. Now would be the time to turn and walk away, to tell him to go screw himself with his weirdness and just… leave._

_That it wasn't her life anymore and that she really didn't want it…_

_But she didn't move._

_And she didn't want to wonder why._

_He finally said, "You know you don't look like you belong in there."_

"_Excuse me?" Buffy asked. She opened her mouth to vault into another litany of stalking facts but he cut her off._

_He glanced over his shoulder. "Do you know you just sit and stare at the table for about ninety-five percent of the conversation?"_

"_I don't... stare." Buffy shot him an aggravated glare. "I… talk. What… so you were watching me." He rolled his eyes. "Where do you come off analyzing my every move? Who the hell are you?"_

"_So you're honestly happy sitting there talking about Carrie Fisher's bra? Not that that's not a viable debate, but..."_

_Buffy narrowed her eyes. "Yes, in fact I am." Buffy pierced her lips before rolling her eyes in frustration. "We're playing this game, fine. You ask questions, I ask questions. How do you know so much about vampires?"_

_And were you just waiting until the last minute to drop the bomb that you don't know what you're talking about, that vampires aren't real and that you'll leave me alone?_

_Buffy felt a sliver of ice cut through her stomach. She couldn't escape the 'something's afoot here' feeling that was mixing with the knowledge that this guy really wasn't such a bad guy. Stupid out-of-use instincts._

_The guy paused, his eyes meeting hers. His face crinkled, his thought process all over him as she watched the corners of his eyes melt together. It was suddenly eerie how much she could read on him as he stared at her: in the way his eyes moved around her face, the way he angled his shoulders towards her, the way he stood. Like he knew her, like they had had this conversation a million times before, like he was annoyed with her, before shrugging it all away, turning back into ice himself._

_And he looked like he been to Hell and back. He just looked so tired, the shadows of the streetlights highlighting the circles under his eyes. It was a resolved tired. Like... well, like she looked when she thought no one was looking._

_But that was back in Sunnydale. Not here._

_James Dean didn't reply fast enough._

"_What, got nothing to say except for, 'Hey, I'm a creepy guy that creepy trolls after random girls?'"_

_He stared at her for another second, that stupid limp smile back on his face, not responding. Instead, he pointed over his shoulder. "This is a side gig." Carl. "I'm here for a friend, nailing down a few demons." Buffy shivered at his word choice, looking away. He glanced down the street, not showing any indication that he had seen her jump at his words. His voice was casual again, like they talked about this sort of thing every day. "He lives a few blocks up on 10__th__."_

"_Why do I care where your friend lives?" she asked, hating how her voice shook as she saw the light at the end of the crap tunnel he was walking with this train of thought. Her emotions were roiling around inside her in a pretty intense 'clusterfuck' motion. They turned to knots as he continued._

_He ignored her, shrugging. "Gig's a tough one..."_

"_I didn't ask," Buffy cut in sharply. He ignored her._

"_Not my thing really, anymore, but can't exactly have the evil nipping at the population, can we?" She stared at the ground again. He ducked his head to catch her eye, his tone saying everything his words weren't. "You know, if you're ever... I don't know, itching to get away from the rousing conversations in there..."_

_The sarcasm dripping from his words were like shards of glass through her entrails._

_"So… so what? What are…" Buffy trailed off, digging her nails into her flesh, staring at the ground before swinging her eyes back to his, her voice steely. "Don't ask."_

_"Not a lot of options in this city. Hunters tend to… avoid this…" Dean waved to his surroundings. "Crap-heap of humanity." He snorted. "Unless you're an oversexed warlock wannabe who has friends in high places… or a chick in serious denial with stick-girl fashion sense..."_

_Buffy's laugh was hollow. She ignored the rush that his invitation brought as she blanched at the thought of being out there again, fighting; a mixture of absolute denial clashed with the lingering effects of the night of her attack and what had happened in the alley not twenty feet away. No. No, she couldn't. "No. No… I can't. Are you… are you out of your mind?"_

_She stepped away, her back slamming into something metal and hard as she brought a hand up to her neck, her shoulders caving in - like she was protecting herself. From what? She didn't know and she didn't care. She felt like she was sitting outside the scene, watching bits and pieces falling off her life at a rapid rate. What was this conversation? Who was this guy?_

"_This feels like a pretty sane request," he replied seriously, his eyes focused on her in such a way that made her wince - his stare felt like a literal weight on her back, the knowledge in his eyes feeling like a spike being drilled through her spine, as she shook her head again._

"_I'm not... helping you. Ever. No. I don't… I can't help you."_

_The guy just nodded, not looking surprised to be let down - like he knew exactly what would happen and that had been his point - before glancing back at the window into the bar. Buffy didn't turn to see what he was looking at, unwilling to take her eyes off of him. "Suit yourself."_

_And then he turned away from her, heading down the street. He chose an alley instead of the sidewalk as he disappeared._

_Buffy's heart seized as the conversation wound through her head; at the thought of what he had been asking, at the thought him knowing what a Slayer was and that she happened to be one and him just being in her bar - her world, her place, her sanctuary… it saturated her bones as she found herself spinning around to the steps that led to her apartment. Her hand still shook at her throat as she sat down..._

_Had he honestly asked her to... hunt? A hunter. Those had been his words… he was a hunter. Buffy closed her eyes, her mind flying back a dozen years to when she had met that lunatic hunting Oz - Cain. He had been a hunter, hunting someone who had no business being hunted. But she didn't get the same feeling with this guy that she got with Cain... this guy was just... something else._

_Something… still bad…_

_Bad. All bad. Because that world was bad. It was a world without light, a world of only darkness, and she wanted nothing to do with that again…_

"_Buffy?"_

"_What, yeah?" Shooting to her feet, Buffy felt her hand awkwardly waving before she could stop it as Ted appeared. She made a fist to cover the action. "Hey." _

"_Hey. Whatcha doin'?"_

"_Nothing. Just... getting some fresh air. Air that is fresh. For the lungs 'cause you know… you need that."_

_Ted shot her a small smile before pointing his thumb of his shoulder. "Were you talking to that guy?"_

"_What guy?" Buffy immediately asked brightly before shaking her head at the dumb question. She felt like she was blushing and was glad it was dark out as she tried to wrangle some control over her brain's lack of word filter at the thought of 'that guy' having been inside MacLaren's. Her voice still cracked. "Yeah, that guy…" Yeah, what about that guy? Her mouth moved without her brain's permission. "I know him through work. He's an... artist. A really weird artist with really... abstract ideas. He just happened to be... here. We were just saying hi."_

"_Oh. That's cool."_

_Buffy smiled faintly. "Yeah. Cool."_

"_Did you come out of MacLaren's? Were you going back in?"_

_Buffy swallowed, forcing the tight smile to her lips. She felt like her world had just gotten turned upside down and tossed into a blender. And strangely, she wasn't entirely freaking out so much as… well, okay, she was freaking out. The surge of panic she felt at the thought of going into the bar, where that man had been… this guy - this guy who suddenly knew more about her than anyone in this entire city and she didn't even know his name - filled her. But what else would she do? Run? Hide?_

_Like hell._

_Pushing the overwhelming panic-filled balloon labeled 'my-world-go-crashy' in her chest down, Buffy nodded. "Yeah. Let's go." Taking his outstretched hand, Buffy's fingers wound through his as they headed back into the bar. "So… how was work?"_

* * *

If you're thinking this guy spent the entire night making me feel like bugs were crawling all over my skin... you'd be right. Because he did. Even when he was gone, even though I had told him to stay away from me, I spent the night imagining him at the bar, sitting and talking and drinking and… invading.

The minute we left the bar, I studied every nook and cranny around in the street, and they were blissfully empty. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I felt like someone had just lifted an entire steel building off my shoulders.

He was gone.

Denial felt good. Like those really old pairs of sweats that you would never wear in the light of day but you wear when you are alone. Really comfortable and really… good.

It didn't last.

It never lasts, does it? Eventually Denial isn't just a river in Africa.

But it wasn't the random guy and it wasn't my intense desire to go back to where things had been just a few weeks ago…

It was guilt.

The guilt built up inside me and just train-rolled my entire body. I had said no to helping people. Even though the mystery fog surrounding this random guy was so thick you couldn't see your own nose, I believed him when he said he was there to help people. He had helped me, hadn't he? My desire to see him being the bad guy lost a tragic battle to reality.

After that, the dreams started up again. But these weren't Slayer-like dreams, these were 'I'm letting everyone around me die' dreams. I watched Dawn getting sucked into the big giant hole of energy. Ted's neck snapped by a vampire. I watched Giles' throat being slit. Lily being drowned. Spike's body burning up before my eyes... I'd barely remember the hows or the whats when I woke up but the feeling stuck. Along with waking up covered in sweat and freaking out because I had watched another loved one die, I was drowning inside in this feeling. This nasty, icky feeling of debilitating guilt.

And that wasn't even the worse of it. I started paying attention again. How I had managed to live in New York for so long and not see the intense... I don't know, pain around me. People were getting mugged, abused and killed everywhere. Some of it was supernatural and some of it wasn't. I started actually reading the newspapers and I started picking out the ones I knew weren't natural deaths... especially the ones close to my apartment… just like James Dean had alluded to. The ones right outside the art gallery I worked at. The ones near my favorite coffee shop. Everything right outside on my doorstep and I did nothing.

I had done nothing. Ever since I left Cleveland to start over, I had done nothing. Countless lives had been stolen right under my nose while I sat back and laughed, drank and lived a life that... that was starting to feel like it wasn't mine anymore.

And all it had taken to open that well was a good ol' fashioned night of me almost dying myself and some really annoying stranger who somehow knew more about me than I did to crack something open in this noggin.

But… denial is still a long damn river.


	5. Chapter Five - July 2014

**Chapter Five - July 2014 (one week later)**

_well there's a change in the wind  
__you know the signs don't lie  
__such a strange feeling and I don't know why  
__it's takin'… such a long time…_

_The hanger of her dry cleaning was digging unpleasantly into her fingers where it was hooked over her shoulder as she made her way home. Three suits hung wrapped in the plastic wrap swaying behind her, mocking her and her wallet. Damn, that place cost a fortune. But they did a good job. And clean suits usually meant happier clients because you weren't looking the part of a bum. That was always nice._

_Checking her watch, she decided a quick stop for a late night jolt was in the works as she had a floor plan to work on when she got back to the apartment - to capture the best light and the correct locations for the different genres of art that were going up this weekend._

_Changing directions, Buffy ignored the feeling of trepidation in the pit of her stomach when she saw the alley directly before her that would take her straight to the other side and straight to her favorite coffee spot. When that trepidation turned into a knot, Buffy shook her head at herself before heading into the alley._

_But really, how many alleys had she practically lived in in her entire life? She was being a dolt._

_But as the overwhelming stench of wet garbage started filling her nostrils, reminding her of what she was beginning to think would never go away - the one that said, "Run!" whenever she saw a dark place, like some crazy trauma victim or something - she still reached back to check her purse, to make sure the stake she never left the apartment without anymore was still in there._

_Yep. A flood of relief released the knot._

_She was about halfway down the alley when she heard the gasp and a low voice that didn't sound anything like a nice, polite person asking quietly for the time. Instead of the straight shot of fear she would have expected, she felt a surge of curiosity and… strangely, calmness._

_Buffy slowed, angling her head when she heard the whimper and she didn't bother with pretending like she wasn't there to scope out the scene, to see what was happening, to gage what her reaction should be. She just acted._

_Buffy dropped the suits and stepped up, grabbing the mugger/rapist/jerkwad's shoulder and yanked him back._

_"What the hell?" he yelped as he stumbled, the knife he had been holding falling to the ground with a clatter while the frightened woman trembled against the wall. Buffy didn't let him get a word in as he started spewing something about interrupting and her being next and blah blah blah..._

_"Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" Buffy asked. Grabbing his hair through his knit cap, Buffy rammed his face into her knee. He cried out, his hands flailing blindly before falling backwards, his head slapping the ground with an echo._

_Buffy sucked in a deep breath at the exhilaration rushing through her blood, feeling her lips pulling back in a smile before turning to the woman. "You okay?"_

_The woman took a quick breath that sounded like a donkey squealing, shaking her head before changing her mind and nodding. Her hand was plastered to her chest as she found her legs were able to work and she took a tentative step forward, her eyes glued on her moaning attacker. "He just... he caught me off guard. I wasn't-"_

"_I know. You're safe now. He won't get you. Although another safe thing is running. Lots of running and definitely an encouraged activity to take up right about now." The woman frowned, like she couldn't comprehend what Buffy was saying. The guy on the ground groaned a leaking trail of obscenities as he struggled to stand in his dizzy spell and the attackee jumped. "It's okay. He won't come after you. I promise."_

_The woman shook her head in bewilderment, clasping her hand around Buffy's arm. "Thank you."_

* * *

That night would be the part of the book where you make the note "something shifty just shifted here."

I was the shifty thing that shifted.

While it's easy to doodle in the margins of a book, not so easy in real life. It took me a second to catch up.

Things in my shiny Manhattan life stayed on track just like they were... for about a week. Things were clean and simple and even-keeled and I was able to skirt along the edges of whatever was starting to grow in the back of my mind.

That night, one week with four days and change past the visit from Mystery Guy, I went for a walk.

I still don't really remember what happened that night other than I woke up in bed, completely calm and lucid. I grabbed my purse with my handy stake and… I just went for a walk. A walk that lasted four hours. A walk that focused on creepy alleys and dark streets and empty doorways - the places I hadn't actively ventured into in years. Away from the safety of the streetlights and the numbers of the Manhattan streets. A walk that ended with me killing my second vampire in over seven years.

I went for a walk a.k.a. I went hunting.

It definitely wasn't a wham bam, thank you, ma'am kind of situation. Lucky for me the vamp I found that night was just a fledgling - a baby, just popped out of the coffin womb and ready to take on the world. Alright, maybe not coffin womb - not exactly a large amount of open cemeteries floating around by where I lived - I think she came from a dumpster somewhere but same difference. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, she barely knew how to use her own fangs, but that didn't mean it took her long to realize that she was stronger than she used to be. And what I mean by that was she was no half-starving mugger.

If I had stumbled onto another gang like that first night, I wouldn't be sitting here, talking to you.

I would be a vampire dinner with no James Dean side to save me.

Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, buddy.

Anyway, something had clicked that night. Something that... I don't know, jolted me. Woke me up. Got that oatmeal raisin inside me burning up like a hot little tamale.

Because suddenly I was going to the gym. I started running, I started doing this weird form of yoga on a wiggly board and I even did those shadow sparring exercises in front of mirrors. At first it was easy. Everyone in New York goes to a gym. Walking around isn't enough to keep up with the skinny demands of fashion so I had a reason, an excuse, for everyone when I couldn't make it to MacLaren's one night. And then it turned into three nights I couldn't make it and then I was barely there.

The excuses started running dry. And pretty quickly too. Like freakishly quick.

It would take me a week after my first walk to feel like I was ready to take another walk. Not that I wasn't in shape. My body responded wicked quick, almost like it had just been sleeping. Hibernating, like a destiny-strong bear. Waiting for something to wake it up.

And boy, did it wake up.

So it wasn't anything physical that was stopping me. Instead it started getting way evident that I was becoming two Buffys; that oatmeal raisin Buffy and chocolate chip Buffy were, well... clashing. Getting really Titan-y.

But sometimes chocolate doesn't go good with anything, not matter how hard you try.

And then the hunts started. A lot of them. Mostly after everyone was asleep and always for hours at a time. The first week out, I had slain three vampires. The second week? Twelve.

Destiny-strong oatmeal raisin bear was back in the saddle. And I wasn't the only one who noticed.

Things with Ted were getting a little strained.

Obviously.

* * *

"_Another walk, huh?"_

"_Yeah. Just... feel like walking."_

_Ted dropped the papers he was reading, jumping up from the couch. "I'll join you. See what all this crazy walking stuff is about."_

"_Oh no, you don't have to. I'm just... walking."_

"_I know."_

"_But, uh... Well. Oh look, it's raining."_

"_That's what these crazy sticks are for," Ted replied, rolling right along with her, yanking a bright blue umbrella out. "They expand so you don't get wet. Like the dilophosauras in Jurassic Park when the naughty computer guy got killed. Fun fact: that dinosaur is actually represented inaccurately, he couldn't spit that crap and there was no… flare thing that looks like an umbrella." Ted stared at the umbrella. "So that reference doesn't actually apply…"_

_"And it wasn't blue," Buffy offered lamely before smiling and throwing her purse on the ground. "You know, walking in the rain only looks romantic in the movies. It usually only leads to bad things like colds and hypothermia. Let's stay in."_

* * *

Smooth. Imagine that smoothness about a hundred times over.

It got worse as we went from a couple who did all sorts of crap together to a couple who suddenly had one half wanting to do things on her own.

* * *

_Buffy lifted her head as silently as she could, glancing at the nightstand. 1:32 a.m. Licking her lips, Buffy glanced over her shoulder where Ted laid, his back to her, his body moving evenly with his breathing._

_Feeling like she wasn't in fact in her early thirties and was actually back in high school, Buffy gently swung the comforter back, easing off the mattress without it making a sound._

_She was grabbing her sneakers and opening the bedroom door when she heard the sheets rub against each other. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Ted lift his head to check the clock before looking at her. She paused, hoping he would assume he was just dreaming._

_No such luck._

"_What's up?"_

"_Just got the munchies," she whispered back, easing out the door. "I'll be right back."_

* * *

I waited about forty-five minutes to make sure he was asleep before I went out. That night, I got three vamps.

I know what you're thinking. Or what you want to say. Why didn't I just tell him? He knew how weird I was about my past and that it was mostly a big dark blotch in my head, but wouldn't it have been easier to just tell him the truth? Explain all the details I had conveniently omitted and explain that I wasn't sneaking out to meet up with some random dude in a bar across town but was actually slaying vampires? And hey, he was super laid back and super open to the idea of otherworldly things - the man's knowledge of Star Wars would shock you… so he probably would have been just fine with it.

So much easier said than done. Trust me.

As far as I was concerned, it was high school all over again. Ted, Lily, Marshall, Robin and Barney were my high school buddies, the people I saw every day, laughed with, learned with, enjoyed being around... and at night, I did my real job. I had done it once before, why couldn't I do it again?

Right. 'Cause life always hands you a bowl of chocolate dipped cherries and says, "Yours for free! Enjoy!" And then when you bite into them, all you get is a bunch of empty stale air because life is a bitch like that.


	6. Chapter Six - August 2014

**Chapter Six - August 2014 (five weeks later)**

_you can't stop what has begun  
__signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion  
__we all have a dark side, to say the least  
__and dealing in death is the nature of the beast_

_Buffy jogged down the street, easily gliding past the few people still lingering as night fell. The scent of rain was strong in the air, a threat of downpour heavy in the clouds lingering too close to the cityscape to be anything but. She couldn't wait - everything always smelled so much better after it rained, like the moisture wiped out the crap that glazed over the city like a second skin._

_It smelled fresh and clean, such a rare thing in New York City. Plus, the hunting was better during the storms. People were so distracted by finding shelter and avoiding the largest puddles known to man that they were easy prey._

_And hey, she was a walking/jogging example of that._

_But this time the tables were turned in her favor. Because she was the one hunting. And it felt… well, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious._

_"Did I really just think that?" Buffy asked herself between pants, her eyes darting around as she moved. She wore a light pack on her back, full of holy water, crosses and stakes, like she was back in tenth grade, hunting for the first time in Sunnydale, unsure of her abilities and what she was capable of in full throttle._

_Every night was becoming just like this. The gym was nice and all but running out in the streets was even better. Exercise, sure, but it was a perfect excuse to do it alone. She was starting to feel a little guilty about the continual Ted blockage happening, but he had no place in this part of her life. He never had, which is why she had never said anything about it._

_No one but her belonged in these dark spaces between the lines of her life._

_And it was strangely liberating. And interesting since when this had been the case when she was seventeen, it had felt like the sky falling around her, suffocating her without a care. Hence the reason Willow and Xander had gotten the tagalong special in high school. But now? There was a new level of appreciation she hadn't had before._

_A feeling of liberation she hadn't had before._

_Although she did manage to promise that she would be at MacLaren's afterwards. Get a little fix before the night was through. She had just… stopped going and that wasn't very nice. And Ted had pointed it out, that worried frown line between his eyes and Buffy had just jumped in, saying things were fine and that she could put the exercise-aholic tendencies aside for a while._

_But just a while. A while being defined as an hour or so._

_A distant cramping started up in Buffy's abdomen and she quickly glanced around. Getting further north. Turning into a long alley, she stopped, hunching over to catch her breath. A crack of thunder echoed through the sky and Buffy looked up just as a bolt of lightening speared into a trundle of clouds. Storm was close. Wiping her forehead, Buffy stood, looking around before making her way through the large space between buildings._

_It never ceased to amaze her how much activity she had actively ignored while living here. And she had thought the actual streets were nasty, especially on trash day? Yeah, try three months' worth of abandoned garbage, rats ga-freaking-lore living between the cracks of humanity, human beings using that filth for warmth against the seasonal weather and the nasties that used them as a buffet line. Well, okay, they used the healthy ones as a buffet line._

_You could call the people who had some sort of disease in their blood lucky for not feeling the sting of a vampire's fangs in their throat, but that was cruel since nature had other plans for them._

_It was the best hunting ground because it was the best cover. Both sides got it and both sides abided. 'Nuff said._

_Reaching back, Buffy felt the Velcro-locked hole in the bottom of her bag where she had easy access to stakes. The sharp point of one such weapon nudged her through the nylon and she nodded to herself._

_At least three were somewhere in this alley. Dicey odds, but dicey manageable was better than not manageable._

_A fine mist started settling down on the ground, larger splats of rain peppering through in preparation for what was coming as Buffy paused in the middle of the alley. She did another look-see before crouching down to pretend to tie her shoe._

_Distractions weren't necessary though as a door in the alley slammed open, a shot of light from inside beaming out and a large body was thrown free, the heavy bulk landing right before her. With wide eyes, Buffy jumped back, scrambling over the ground as the body made a few noises of pain._

_And like a dinner whistle, out came the three she had felt before. And now her stomach was doing the Slayer Waltz through her muscles._

"_Hey," one of them said, staring at her. "Dessert."_

"_Keep it clean, boys," a female voice sliced through with an Italian accent said from the doorway and Buffy turned to see who the fourth addition was only to have black eyes meet her stare. Buffy started at the sight as the woman continued nonchalantly, closing the door behind her, "We do not want any more visitors."_

"_Right, boss."_

_Buffy filed away the strange black-eyed widow woman for another time, wondering where the line was drawn in this relationship with who were the lambs and who was the lion._

"_Boss, huh?" Buffy piped in, reaching back to her bag and pulling out a stake. "I like new world order. Gives me the feminine fuzzies to see you fellas taking orders from a woman. Alright, a demon woman, but hey, beggars can't be choosers."_

"_Oooh, she's snarky," the one closest to her said as the lump of a human on the ground moaned in pain. The one that liked her inched closer. "And she's got a piece of wood. How cute."_

"_It's gonna get real cute here in a second," Buffy said with a smile before stepping in and shoving her fist into the vamp's throat. He choked out in pain, his hands flying to cover the site of his injury as Buffy moved to his side, kicking out the side of his knee. He yelped, collapsing. "Pain is the new cute, haven't you heard?"_

_Man, it was like she had never stopped..._

_The larger of the two left standing reached down and grabbed the lapels of the poor sap who was about to be dinner as Buffy advanced on them. "Kill her. Make it quick. We've got answers we need from this one."_

_The moment the big vamp got the man standing, his feet unsteady on the ground, his weight leaning into the vampire's bulk as the third vampire turned to Buffy... everything did a wild back flip. The guy's feet gained traction, his arms coming up to knock the lax hold the vamp had on him before he grabbed the vamp's shoulders and slammed his head into his._

_Holy mother of crap, it was her mystery guy. Seriously, Fates, what were the freaking odds?_

_It was like a dance of the morbid. James Dean over there concentrated on his Hulk vampire while Buffy handled her two. She took a few uncomfortable shots - one felt like her teeth were about to come rocketing out of her gums and the other she was sure she had broken a toe - before hers were dust on the wind._

_She turned in time to see him knocking his vampire into the land of demon dreams, the vampire's head slapping the ground soundly as he laid out cold. James Dean yanked out some vicious looking twine from inside his jacket and tied it quickly around the vampire's wrists behind his back. Buffy stopped, raising an eyebrow._

"_Looking for a cuddle buddy?" she asked, taking a tentative step forward. Her stake was still firmly in hand as she approached, feeling an odd thrill in her chest when the guy looked back with what she was starting to think was his signature grin. She wasn't sure, though, if the stake was for him or the vampire. He did appear to be a harbinger of the bad stuff happening…_

_And they hadn't exactly left on good terms the last time she ran into him._

_She didn't entertain the thoughts in the back of her mind that she was in no way bothered by running into him again. All the agitation and frustration and fear from last time was gone and in its place was curiosity of her own as well as an odd form of gratitude that it was him playing bait and not some random Joe._

"_I guess you could say that," the guy grunted as he finished the knot. He let the vampire fall back to the ground on its full weight, a loud smack filling the air. The mist hadn't stopped and the guy stood, running his hand through his hair as he stared at her stake. "Change of heart, I see."_

_Buffy tightened her grip on the stake, ignoring the comment. "Never did catch your name, big guy."_

"_That's 'cause I didn't throw it at you," he replied, digging into another inner pocket. Producing a phone, he quickly typed something before sending the text. "Not like you're being so forthcoming your little self."_

"_Do you blame me?"_

_He shrugged. "Guess not." Shoving the phone back in his pocket, he cocked his head, studying her. "So what happened?"_

"_What?" He nodded to her stake and she shook her hand, letting it fall to her side. "Precaution."_

"_Right."_

_She could already hear him wanting to say it: 'Because you always wander into dark alleys with an arsenal as precaution.' He didn't say it though._

_An estranged silence gathered speed between them. The awkwardness from their last meetings lingered still and that unnaturally familiar guilt started building its nest in her stomach again as she remembered her words from last time and how it must look as she stood in the alley, doing exactly what she had gotten angry at him for suggesting._

_Although he had ambushed her, but still…_

_What could she say? 'Hey, sorry I ditched out on your demon fun last time, I'm in the midst of an identity crisis… for possibly the fourth time.'_

_Shifting her body, Buffy contemplated whether this was time to get home before the rain and the weird questions hit or... stay and ask questions herself. Which is what she actually wanted to do._

"_Got big plans with him?" she asked, pointing to the unconscious vampire. Questions were safer. Questions led to answers which led to conversations not surrounding her surprise visit in the world of slaying. Or a whole bucket load of I-told-you-so's._

_The guy nodded, looking a little pleased with himself for the catch. "Rumors of a pretty large nest somewhere around here. They're doing a new recruit game," he said, pointing to the door with a pained expression, "So I thought I would try and find out where they're all headed. Can say one thing about bloodsuckers, they know how to hide when they don't want to be found."_

"_And you were in there by yourself?" Buffy asked incredulously. "Who was that woman?"_

"_Demon." He frowned, turning back to glare at the door. "Looks to be a demon reunion here soon which makes it a little more twisted with vamps in the freaky mix. Fuckers are getting dodgier and dodgier with no home base… not that they liked the home base. Guess it's not exactly fun anymore having nowhere to escape from afterwards."_

_If his words were supposed to make sense, they didn't and Buffy shook her head, focusing on the more relevant part. "So you were... what, bait? You were the bait and you were the cavalry?"_

_The guy smiled. "One-man show. Not like I had any other options."_

"_What about that 'friend' you were visiting last time, he couldn't have at least told you that you were a moron for trying this stellar plan?"_

"_We're not that good of friends. He knows someone I know and so I help out from time to time." He looked around. "And not why I'm here this time, but thanks for the concern, sweetheart."_

_Buffy opened her mouth to retort, to tell him that he was stupid for not taking backup, that he was going to get killed, that he was going up against something huge and dark and that he was clearly only human and... and... what? She could help? After her response the last time she had seen him, he probably wouldn't even be open to the idea. And here she was, walking around like a giant hypocritical slaying thing. Buffy swallowed, wondering where this flood of concern for this random guy was coming from. She couldn't explain it, but she felt something like a kinship with him. Something... comfortable, something that went well with the whole new liberation gig._

_Maybe it was that he knew what she was. Maybe it was that he was the one that had metaphorically kicked her in the head and made her open her eyes again._

"_Well, you know..." He just stared at her. "I could help. Next time. If there is a next time."_

_The guy didn't move; he just stood there, studying her. "Huh," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Real change of heart. What, did somebody die?"_

"_Yeah, I almost did," Buffy quickly snapped, crossing her arms in embarrassment. Like he didn't already know that. "You know, you could be cool and just say 'thanks, I'll do that next time' instead of being a jerk."_

_He opened his mouth to say something before he stopped. He held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, I'm not trying to get your panties all twisted." Buffy glared at him. "But I might take you up on that. Thanks."_

"_Good." Buffy nodded. "Because... I'll be here. To help."_

"_Good." A pregnant second passed before he chuckled. "Nice to see I still have some sway over a female's intentions." Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Name's Dean. Winchester."_

"_Buffy," she replied slowly. "Is my name. Buffy Summers." She watched him narrow his eyes for a split second before looking away. "What?" She chuckled uneasily. "You actually have heard of me after all my crazy accusations?"_

_Dean just smiled, shaking his head. "The world is a crazy place," he said, leaning down. "How about you use those freakish muscles of yours to help me lift this guy into my trunk?"_

_Buffy frowned at his leading words again but didn't comment. Why bring up more unnecessarily uncomfortable conversation? She was sure it was that she was back in the slaying game that she wasn't freaked about him having heard of her. It wasn't exactly unusual, although she had thought the years would put her back into anonymity. Either way, she was okay not pressing it. Things were good and calm and not icky with this guy who seemed to be everywhere and she found she didn't want to push him away._

_"Where's your trunk?"_

_"On the street."_

_"Oh great, by people. Lots and lots of people."_

_"Well, if you act like you're doing something wrong, of course you'll look like you're doing something wrong," Dean grunted in response to her concern, digging his fingers into the vampire's armpits. "Legs."_

_Buffy grabbed the vamp's ankles, lifting his bulk easily. "Your logic is dumb."_

_"Just lift."_

* * *

What became rapidly evident after that hunt was the empty air inside those free cherries was chocolate chip Buffy's life.

Over the next several months, I ran into Dean a few more times.


	7. Chapter Seven - December 2014

**Chapter Seven - December 2014 (four months later)**

_one world, it's a battleground  
__one world, and we will smash it down  
__one world… one world…_

_Buffy felt the hands on her body. She felt the clawed fingers curling up in her clothes for grip before gravity abandoned her and she was floating, her shirt tightening against her skin painfully._

_And then she was flying._

"_No!"_

_She heard Dean let out a bark of pain as she collided with his body, both of them falling in a tangle of limbs into a pile of garbage. Something wet landed on her cheek, her knee slammed uncomfortably into the ground and she felt her fingers doing the tango with what felt like an old banana peel._

_Scrambling to find her feet, Buffy let out a sound of disgust, swiping at her face. She felt Dean using her as leverage to find his feet as well and she turned in his arms just in time to see the vampire duo running straight at them._

"_Lift me up, lift me up, lift me up," Buffy said urgently, turning her back to him and bending her knees. She waved at him over her shoulder, her eyes on the prey. She heard Dean ask her what she was doing before he too saw the vamps and then his hands were on her waist. Almost like they had spent time choreographing this puppy a la Dirty Dancing, Buffy braced her hands over his for balance as he lifted her up. She shoved a foot into each vamp's face, a cascade of cartilage crunching and they both flew back, one hitting a hanging metal ladder and the other slamming a dent in a door._

"_Nice," Dean breathed behind her after her feet found the ground again and Buffy shot him a grin over her shoulder before leaping in for the kill._

* * *

He didn't call in any favors and I didn't spend my time hunting looking for him.

I actually ended up spending more time walking around with him than doing any actual hunting the few times I did see him.

Like we were… friends. Like our first meeting hadn't actually been so acid-filled. Like weeks of time didn't pass between us suddenly running into each other. Like the actual act of running into each other so often and so many times in such a large city wasn't weird.

It was nice, having someone to share those dark spaces with again… Something just clicked.

* * *

**February 2015 (two months later)**

"_He did what?"_

"_He put it in his mouth."_

"_No, ew. No. Isn't that like... ghost vomit? Ew," Buffy said, shaking her head with a laugh._

"_Yeah." Dean chuckled. "Yeah, Garth's a pretty interesting guy."_

_The gentle smile on his face didn't escape her. "So what has he done for you to owe him so much that you keep coming back here?"_

"_Those are stories for another time."_

_Buffy rolled with the rejection easily. "I would say those are stories for really boring nights when this 'warlock' guy - this friend of a friend - is clearly just sitting around in his apartment, eating mushrooms and not in any actual danger."_

_Dean grunted in agreement. He wasn't exactly the kind of guy to boast about anything. Ever. In fact, he talked so little about anything Dean-related, it was like he was a ghost. Like he had no back story, no funny tales, no silly anecdotes. It was just the random people he knew, the people who gave him a smile... everything else he kept so close to the chest, it was armor._

_Buffy looked around. Even the streets were dead, not a dead thing in sight. Rather, not a dead thing in sight that was a demon-infested fiend. Even the humans were staying off the streets. B-o-ring._

"_Alright, you won't tell me anything hunter-related which... okay. How about something easier. Do you have any siblings?"_

_Dean suddenly did the best impersonation of a brick wall ever as he stiffened next to her, his gait changing. He adjusted his shoulders in his jacket before shoving his hands into his pockets as that brick wall grew a few layers of steel. Buffy watched him, watched him scowl like he was staring into the bowels of a hellhound before relaxing his face before scowling again. A show of 'to tell or not to tell' maybe…_

"_Uh... yeah. A brother."_

_Buffy nodded, keeping her voice light. "Where is he now?"_

"_Not here."_

_The stony ice in his tone was enough to stab through anything dead. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry."_

_She heard him taking a deep breath. "No, you're fine. I just don't like... talking. About... well, anything." He chuckled humorlessly. Buffy stared at him for a moment where he watched the sidewalk as they moved along. His face was tight and closed off, the brick wall impersonation going nowhere and she simply nodded, piercing her lips and crossing her arms over her chest. To make sure her fingers had something to do, she reached under her arms to check her backpack was still there. He let out another breath. "How about you? You got any blood ball and chain rolling around somewhere?"_

_Buffy glanced back over again and saw him turn to meet her eye. He looked honestly curious and she smiled. Hey, not like she was ever one for the big spillin' o' the beans. She had gotten used to the gruff-now-chill-later kind of guy Dean was turning out to be. Although that didn't stop her from wanting to know more - he had clearly been through a meat grinder, sure, but that didn't mean there wasn't ground beef just sitting around somewhere, waiting to be discovered._

"_Yeah. A little sister. She's in Europe right now... and she's also dating one of my best friends."_

"_Huh."_

"_That is an understated response. Definite understatement."_

"_Guy or girl?" Dean asked with a hint of amusement and Buffy rolled her eyes._

_"Guy. I don't think Dawn's on the girl tour bus… unless she is and it's Willow she's dating…" Buffy's eyes widened as her mind swept through the prospects before shaking her head, throwing her hands up. "Ah, either way! It's weird!"_

_"So… he's your age?" Buffy nodded. "And that freaks you out."_

"_Of course it freaks me out, it's..." Buffy waved her hands around. "Not right. Well, it's right. It feels okay, in a really weird and creepy way, but not in a bad way. Just a way that's… weird. I mean come on, he was around her when she was still in middle school, an annoying little... freakish ball of energy, running around with ice cream smeared all over her face. Yeah, that's real attractive."_

"_How old is she?"_

"_Twenty-five."_

_Dean snorted. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that ice scream smeared all over a twenty-five year old sounds goddamn delicious." Buffy smacked his shoulder. "What? Come on. People change as they get older."_

"_Look at you with all these pearls of wisdom disguised as understatements of the year."_

_Dean made a face. "Cute."_

"_Yes. I am actually." Buffy shot him a quick smile when she saw him turning to look at her. An unwelcome shot of heat scorched through her body when her eyes met his. The tiny voice in the back of Buffy's mind told her to look away, but she didn't. She didn't want to. They looked darker than normal and something unreadable was in his gaze as his eyes darted to her lips for a second before he looked away. Buffy felt an even more unwelcome desire to do something more like lick her lips or bat her eyelids or freaking blush…_

_Whoa, where had that come from?_

_Buffy cleared her throat, looking away. "So much dead out here... How about we use this cuteness as bait for a little demon dramarama party?"_

* * *

I'm pretty sure you can tell where this is going. It's called Bad Land. Very Bad Land.

But… the bottom line? It was nice to have someone to share the raisins with.

* * *

**March 2015 (one month later)**

_"So you just drive around the country, checking out stories that may or may not be supernatural-related and if they are, you research what it is, hunt it down and then… start over?"_

_"Well, when you say it like that, it sounds like the definition of insanity."_

_"But no, you're getting different results each time so your expectations are well-placed."_

_Dean glanced at her, shaking his head. They were leaning against a sticky concrete wall that had been painted black. What was sticky on it, she really didn't want to know or even let her mind wander into that realm of ew. Buffy stared at him for a split second longer, his eyes glued to entrance of the club they were watching._

_Rumored to be a demon hangout of the upper crust demons - if there were such a thing - and the reason that Dean was back in town so quickly. Not that she was complaining. Buffy's eyes trailed down his jaw line, noting that he was intensely focused on the door, his face taut, and the way his jacket lapels were jacked up against the occasional breeze coming off the water._

_She always found it fascinating that he looked younger when he was intent like this. It was only when he didn't have something to focus on, something to hunt or kill, that all the years of crap he wore on his face in the form of worry lines and an entire lack of laugh lines that you saw the life he had lived. But right now? He… looked good._

_Buffy cleared her throat, looking away. Wow, hello inappropriate thoughts. Get lost. Go away. Get a life._

_"It's not so bad," he said, interrupting the internal rants and Buffy nodded._

_"It wouldn't be so bad, traveling around to see the country like that." She saw Dean out the corner of her eye turning to look at her and she turned to face him. "I mean, I'm sure you meet a lot of interesting people."_

_The hint of a smile on his lips was enough for her to know he got it. "Yeah."_

_"And hey, meeting new baddies, nothing bad about that. Ridding the world of the evil spawn."_

_"Trying to anyway."_

_"Doing. And you're doing a great job at it," she said, her eyes glued to the side of his face again and he glanced at her before looking away. The ping in her heart when she saw he clearly saw it a different way upset her. He didn't respond. "You know that right? I wouldn't even be here without you."_

_Dean snorted. "Right. The night I was stalking you."_

_"Hey," Buffy said, swatting his arm playfully. "I was kind of freaking out. Do you blame me?"_

_"Yes, I do actually," he said. "Slayers don't typically get hooked on the freak out bus."_

_"Well, I'm special, I guess."_

_"Yeah," he said softly, looking at her again. Buffy's heart fluttered and she wanted to close her fist around it. He looked away before giving her a sidelong glance. "You are."_

_She couldn't stop the smile blossoming on her lips. She looked away quickly before looking back and hitting his arm again. "You're only saying that so I stick around to save your butt."_

_"Hey, my butt is fine without any saving."_

_"Your butt is fine," Buffy said without thinking as she swung to look at the door again before her words registered. She turned back to see his eyebrow raised and an amused smile on his face. "No. Not that I look at your butt. I didn't mean… that I was analyzing it or anything. Those were your words. Not mine."_

_"You like my butt?"_

_Buffy had a newfound appreciation for the gross sticky and entirely black and shadowy wall on which they were leaning because her face felt like a burning tomato. "No. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad butt, it's definitely a fine… It's just like every other butt walking around and oh my god, why are we talking about this. Subject change. Stat."_

_Dean chuckled, looking up when a very human patron entered the club. Other than that, the street was quiet save for the two crazy people hiding in the shadows, waiting for what Dean called a "demon-filled human meat suit" to come in or leave. His best lead thus far on the chick with the freaky black eyes he seemed to have been tracking for months now. And all she'd gotten by way of explanation was, 'Demon possession - Christ, what do they even teach you guys?'_

_"Would you?" he asked after a moment._

_Buffy looked at him. "What?"_

_"Leave."_

_"Oh." Buffy paused, caught off guard. She opened her mouth, waiting for the 'No' to come tumbling out but it didn't. "Oh." Would she leave? "I… I don't know. I mean, my life is here. Well, my new life is here and there are… people here. And…" She shrugged. It's not like she hadn't left somewhere before - hello, reason why she was in New York in the first place… "I don't know, I guess." She laughed. "That's a weird thing to say, but I don't know. I mean, I've got people and…" She had people. She had lots of people. She had a life and she had everything she wanted… but there was that little tickle in the back of her mind that told her she wasn't so sure. And that she was okay not being so sure… "If the right circumstances applied, I guess. Wow, that's callous. No. I don't… I don't know. There. Answer. Simple, clean." She sliced the air with her hand. "I don't know."_

_She saw Dean nodding his head slowly from the corner of her eye. "Did it before."_

_"Yeah," Buffy said, staring at the club entrance as her mind circled the issue. But different circumstances then. One of her multiple identity crises and trying to find out who she really way… She was happy here, wasn't she? What was this little smidgen of indecision bouncing around like a cracked out bunny on steroids in the back of her head?_

_"Yeah. I did."_

* * *

He was a hunter, someone who had been living the life literally since he was a little kid and knew the score. He knew I was a Slayer and which Slayer I was - some from reputation a la that friend of a friend of his that he was visiting in New York and some because of the Slayer boom that had boosted the good guys' economy. He didn't get wigged or weird around me like most humans did, even if they knew the game. He just… accepted it and moved on. Like accepting that every day ends in a 'y' - no biggie.

It was… nice.

Maybe too nice but that's always a ghost train until it runs you over. A ghost train made of time that you thought was a buffer but was in reality a big giant false time-thing.


	8. Chapter Eight - May 2015

**Chapter Eight - May 2015 (two months later)**

_catch me, I am falling  
__and your innocence  
__is all I have  
__can you hear me calling  
__in pieces only I can understand_

_in pieces only I can understand_

_Seven bags of discarded temporary artist sketches. Two arms. The math was looking bad._

_Buffy dug her fingers into the plastic bags, feeling her nails starting to rip new holes in the stupid things as she tried to lean over to see where she was walking. Of course Marinna has to choose the art gallery with the perilous back alley full of potholes. Of course she has to choose the alley with the dumpster that was on the other side of the street. Of course Buffy had agreed to stay late to help out and of course she was the last one left and thus, the only one available to take out the trash._

_Of course._

_Buffy clenched her teeth, heaving the bags up as she picked up a quicker pace. She still had to go back in and shut down the lights and lock up before heading home to get in a quick meet-and-greet at MacLaren's before doing a not-so-quick sweep of the streets._

_The roar of a bitterly loud car engine echoed from behind her and Buffy didn't bother to see who it was, not caring. Parking anywhere around here was off limits and the meter maids made the rounds like it was their life's goal to destroy people with parking tickets. So let them park and let them get ticketed and let them go somewhere else to roar their stupid cars and annoy the people within fifty feet of it._

"_Who the hell drives in New York anyway? Lose a limb just getting into a cab much less-"_

"_Need some help, little lady?" a voice said from behind her and Buffy stopped in her tracks. She couldn't fight the smile on her face as she looked over her shoulder._

"_Dean."_

"_Buffy," he said in a mocking voice as he approached her. Buffy's smile widened at his playful tone - he sounded especially laid back tonight. Buffy felt the plastic slipping through her fingers and she tried to readjust without everything falling apart as she bit her lip to keep from a full-blown grin as something like a butterfly ball slammed in her chest. Jeez, what was she, in middle school?_

"_I take it that annoying monstrosity of a car I just heard is yours?"_

"_Whoa, watch your mouth about my baby," Dean said. "She's more woman than you'll ever be."_

"_Ooh, stop it with those compliments, you'll make me blush," Buffy replied, turning to head back to the dumpsters. "And here I thought you never-"_

_Pot. Holes. Pot. Freaking. Holes._

_Buffy couldn't have stopped herself even if she had wanted to. She was wearing a pair of durable but ridiculously high heels that looked amazing in an art gallery and absolutely crappy on the street where the holes in the pavement were the size of her head. It happened in a split second as Buffy felt her ankle roll into the hole, her heel giving her extra oomph and she let out a sharp yell of pain, instinctively dropping all the garbage bags as she moved to catch herself._

_Dean was closer than she thought because he grabbed her arm before she hit the ground, pulling her back into his arms. She felt him stumbling back from the slap of gravity, his arms securely wrapped around her. Buffy hissed in pain when she moved to stand by herself on instinct - because hey, her ankle had always worked - the sharp radiating pain encompassing her lower leg._

"_Oh, owie, owie," Buffy whimpered, digging her fingers into Dean's jacket as he gently set her on the ground, kneeling next to her. The sharp sudden pain was shocking, making her lungs squeeze like they were being milked in a juicer. God, why did twisted ankles hurt so damn bad?_

"_Which one?"_

_Buffy's whimpers got louder as she pointed to her left foot, letting out a pained keel when Dean touched it. Buffy wanted to reel back and punch him in the back of the head when he palpitated but she settled for squeezing his shoulder so hard, she hoped he was feeling what he was doing to her._

"_You can stop squeezing me like I'm cutting your damn leg off, I think you just sprained it," Dean said. "Can you move it?"_

"_No," Buffy said without trying and Dean gave her an annoyed look. Buffy was the Slayer. She had been the Slayer for a hell of a long time and she had had the luxury of feeling more wounds than most - gashes, stabs, broken ribs and even a few shattered hearts. But this... this damn ankle HURT._

"_Try." Buffy made a face, twisting her ankle as best she could and letting out a little cry. She didn't miss the amused smirk on Dean's face as he watched her twist it. "See, that wasn't so bad."_

_Buffy glared at him and he smiled at her. "I've got better ideas about what's not so bad." He rolled his eyes and she waved to the painful ankle. "Something's... grinding in there."_

"_It did crack pretty good."_

"_What? It did? Did I break it?"_

"_Do I look like a freaking doctor?" Dean asked, wrapping his hands around her waist. Buffy wanted to say something neat and quippy and funny and mean all at the same time but everything in her brain erased when she once again moved her foot without thinking. She whimpered, tugging on Dean's lapels as he got ready to pick her up. "Come on, it's not that bad."_

_Buffy wanted to argue because it was that damn bad but she would have said the same thing in his spot. "I know," she said dejectedly. "I know that, but that stupid ankle doesn't know that."_

"_Ready?" he asked and before she could say, 'I'm okay just laying here on the ground for a while,' he had her up. And wouldn't you know it, her other leg felt like a wet spaghetti noodle and she collapsed into his arms._

"_Whoa there," he __said, pulling her against his chest for a place to lean. It took Buffy approximately two seconds to realize she was digging her forehead against his chest and one more second to realize her entire body was flush against his. Buffy swallowed, feeling his chest contract underneath her hands before putting weight on her good leg, her other hanging uselessly._

_When she pulled her head back, her mind ready to go into a whole lecture about good touching vs. bad touching, Dean looked down at the same time. Buffy sucked in a short breath, her eyes suddenly finding his lips as he blinked slowly._

_Time did that weird warp where it seemed to slow down and everything in her body became hyper aware. She felt the heat coming off of his skin through his clothes; the grip of his hands on her waist and hip as he held her - so gentle and easy, so different from the way they moved and felt when they were fighting; the way his breath tickled at her cheek, smelling of something minty and something old beer-ish; the way a rush of heat swarmed through her stomach, branching out like a deranged tree as his hands shifted on her back, his fingers digging in slightly. He licked his lips and Buffy let out a dry breath, wondering what they would feel like..._

_Time warp mind screw._

_Buffy felt her hand moving before she could stop it and her index finger touched his stubbled chin, her eyes darting up to his. She tried to take a deep breath but everything inside her mouth and lungs was dry as the Sahara as she stared into the mossy green of his eyes. He was so close, right there..._

_Her heart was racing through her chest like a marathon horse on crack as he leaned into her touch…_

_And then she needed to breathe and then reality settled in around her like a noxious cloud of reminder as she remembered she was at work. In the middle of the street. In Dean's arms… where she shouldn't be._

* * *

Because bad.

* * *

_Buffy pulled out of his arms, looking everywhere but anything Dean-related and she hobbled back as best she could, finding it amazing that her ankle magically didn't hurt as badly as a mixture of regret, guilt and excitement wept through her veins where that crack horse had been roaring just a second ago._

_Keeping a hand on his arm for balance, Buffy smiled awkwardly, her hand oddly hot where it touched his jacket._

_And she had nothing to say._

"_So, uh…" Dean cleared his throat. "Can you walk?"_

_"What? Yes." Buffy swallowed, biting the tip of her tongue as she tried to stand on the traitor ankle. "Easy-schmeasy, this walking thing." It felt like an army of little people were down there, working together to shove a chisel against her ankle bones. She didn't realize it until her nails started hurting that she was clawing Dean's arm off._

_"I'll take that as a no." He grabbed her elbow, indicating a pile of crates to sit on. Buffy felt that same stupid horse stampeding in her chest at his warm hand and she mentally slapped herself. God, this was Dean! Dean! Boring, emotionally-stunted Dean who cared more about his car than the clothes on his back and spent more time cleaning his guns than sleeping. He was in no way near the suddenly smoldery-eyed guy who had facial hair that had somehow become way too-_

_Emergency brakes, brain, emergency brakes._

_"I'll be fine," Buffy said, her voice strained as she limped to the crates. "See, I can make it."_

_"Yeah, you're a real classy limping broad there."_

_"Shut up."_

_"I can, uh…" Dean helped her sit down, his hand lingering on her arm before he snatched his hand back. "Give you a ride. Back-"_

_"You don't have to, that's really not-"_

_"To your house."_

_"I'm fine, really." Buffy lifted her leg, twisting it just enough for her foot to move a centimeter and for her to not wince. "See. It moved!"_

_Dean gave her a hard look. "Do jumping jacks."_

_"I would… if I wasn't wearing high heels," Buffy said smartly._

_"Yeah, you also wouldn't have almost made out with some concrete if you weren't wearing those things."_

_"Hey, don't blame the shoes. These are great shoes and they look really good on me."_

_"They do look-" Dean stopped and Buffy's eyes widened as she imagined where his words were taking him._

* * *

Remember Bad Land?

* * *

_God, this has just gone from manageably awkward to horrifying-giraffe-fight awkward._

_"Well, I'm not gonna just leave you here while you build up enough courage to walk to the street for a cab."_

"_Um..." Darn stupid logic. "Okay. But I still need to do a few more things. Inside."_

"_Alright. Just, uh…" Dean pointed to the backdoor of the gallery. "Just tell me what to do."_

_"And the, um… trash. Laying there, in the middle of the street."_

_Dean looked affronted for a second. "What the hell am I, your servant?"_

_"What? You offered."_

_"Not for indentured servitude."_

_Buffy rolled her eyes as he went for the trash. "Nice."_

_"You're damn right I'm nice."_

_It took Dean twenty minutes to follow through with her instructions about what to do inside as he kept coming out, calling her a direction liar._

_Twenty-three minutes later, he was helping her up, his arm wrapped around her waist to help her walk, his warm palm underneath her jacket and flush against her rib cage, right below…_

* * *

Denial. River. Africa.

That was us. In a nutshell. A really cramped, awkward Bad Land nutshell.

During those first few months of slaying, I got pretty darn good with the balance. This balance involved going into Chocolate Chip Buffy mode before switching back to Oatmeal Raisin Buffy mode. I made it work, like I always had. And like I always had, there were things in both worlds I wanted to keep just the way they were.

At first, it was easy.

Things with Ted started looking up. I stopped being so weird and secretive all the time and I even gave in with Barney and played his sister. I went shopping with Lily and I egged Robin on with her reporter gig. I helped Marshall color in one of his pie charts.

It was like riding a bicycle - I had oatmeal raisin on one hand and chocolate chip in the other. I didn't let myself think about the years of pure chocolate chip or the years of pure oatmeal raisin because I was making good darn due with what I had before me.

I was making it work. It didn't really occur to me that I was playing with fire - that I was leading one man on and entertaining something I couldn't even fathom with another until it was too late. It was literally like I was back in high school again, everything in place such as the "new" slaying gig and the naïve "I can get away with this" thinking.

Hindsight is such a bitch. And you'd think I know that since I had lived through it.

Like I said before, it never just… stays in one spot, that crazy thing called life.

It didn't help that it took me a little too long to realize how very deep the chasm between the two Buffys was becoming the more time passed, the more I did the little jiggle dance with my life during the day and my life at night…

And then, about one week after the last time I saw him, Dean took me up on my offer. He needed help with that large nest of vampires snacking on a small town further north. About ninety-eight miles away outside of the city.

Also known as "we're definitely not in Kansas anymore" because like the smartest person ever, I lost my phone and - click those heels, Toto - the only other way Dean knew how to find me... was at MacLaren's.


	9. Chapter Nine - July 2015

**Chapter Nine - July 2015 (two months later)**

_and you know it's getting stronger  
__it can't last very much longer  
__turn to stone…_

_"Hey, Carl, another round, please."_

_"You got it, B."_

_It never failed, she always felt a stab through her chest at Carl's nickname for her. Freakish. Buffy leaned against the bar, staring at the lineup of alcohol along the back wall before glancing over her shoulder. She watched Ted staring blandly at something Barney was saying and she smiled. Almost like a magnet, Ted turned to her and returned the smile._

_Things were getting better between them. Buffy had explained the "outer limits" weeks as saying she just got a little obsessed with exercising. And it was just something she didn't like doing with other people - because of the sweat, of course. And Ted, being the best human being walking the planet, had accepted that and then cracked a joke about what she looked like the night before in bed._

_And then she had bruised his arm._

_Turning back to the bar, Buffy stared at her fingers as Carl set a pitcher of beer in front of her before going to grab two wine glasses for Lily and Robin. Buffy carried it back to the table, leaning over to set it in the center before sliding into her spot next to Ted._

"_My sweet beer queen, tell Carl to fetch me-"_

"_I already told you, no more Barney alcohol on my tab," Buffy interrupted._

_Barney shook his head in mock disbelief. "Still upset about the hot Asian."_

"_I will always be upset about the hot Asian," Buffy replied. She wagged her finger at Barney. "We have been over this dozens and dozens of times."_

"_False," Barney replied. "Only fourteen times. Get your story straight."_

"_Another glass, m'lady?" Ted asked, grabbing the pitcher and Buffy's glass. Buffy smiled at him._

"_Please."_

"_One day I will teach you the super secret trick to no foam," Ted said as he poured._

"_Tilt the glass?"_

"_If only it were so simple. There is a lot of wrist action here. Observe the wrist action." Buffy laughed as Ted twisted his wrist for show, the beer sloshing in her glass. Without a prompt, Buffy glanced at the bar._

_Dean turned just in time to catch her eye, his lips forming words that she couldn't hear as he spoke to Carl behind him. He was lifting his glass of beer for a drink when he stopped in mid-lift. His face shifted when he caught her eye, darkening and she felt a stab of 'holy mother of god' stab through her stomach. Then he shot her a short nod and she felt her heart stop completely. Which was never good because it meant the oxygen her body badly needed had no way to get in there._

_Buffy sucked in a quick breath and quickly averted her eyes, turning as Ted continued talking but she had no idea what he was saying. She knew there were words coming out of his mouth, that he was talking at her about something and that thing and another thing but past that? She glanced back at where Dean had sat down at the bar._

_Okay, clearly not leaving._

_And he looked up right as she looked at him. He raised an eyebrow at her._

_Damn it. Wiping her lips with her hand, Buffy noticed Carl had yet to bring the wine over._

"_Wine," she blurted. Lily and Robin glanced at her from across the table. "I'll check. On the wine." And then she was up and off._

_She knew she had no reason to be freaked that he was in here. So he was in here, so what? He'd been here before. He knew Carl. He... liked beer. Beer was good. And foamy. Everyone liked foamy things._

_Draping her arms over the bar, Buffy pressed her sternum into the wood as hard as she could as she glanced at Dean out the corner of her eye. She wouldn't have had to look at all as the familiar mixture of Dean surrounded her. Leather, gun powder and some sort of spicy musky cologne that he would never admit to wearing._

"_What are you doing here?" she asked._

_She watched him frown before glancing back at the table. He turned to face the bar in his stool, taking a drink from his beer. Buffy didn't notice Carl going back and forth on the other side, juggling a few glasses before he disappeared with two wine glasses._

"_Hello, earth to Dean."_

"_I'm here to see you." He shot her a look. "Obviously."_

_Buffy hated the stupid back flip she felt in her chest and she bit her tongue. "What happened? Are you okay?"_

"_What, I can't just see a friend?" he asked, his voice too sweet and she almost flicked him in the eye. Fighting the urge to glance over her shoulder to see what the group was doing, she clenched her hands into a doubled fist._

"_Dean-"_

"_Relax. I'm not here to bust up your party over there." He took another draw from his glass and Buffy frowned at the side of his head, not liking his tone._

_"Then what are you doing here?" Buffy asked, filing this away for 'crap we need to talk about' when she saw him again. Preferably away from here and preferably outside where at least the cool air was her friend. It felt a little too toasty in MacLaren's all of a sudden. Buffy glanced over her shoulder at her table and saw Ted and Marshall illustrating something with their hands for Robin and Lily providing guidance around them. She put her attention back on Dean. "You can't be here."_

_Dean raised an eyebrow. "Ooh, hostile tonight, huh? Fight with the boyfriend or are you just happy to see me?"_

_Buffy snorted, feeling a little too much of that hostility coming out before she could stop it. "Please. Don't flatter yourself."_

_"I don't know, usually I get a smile and a 'Hey, Dean, I missed you!' Not a snarl."_

_"Well, you shouldn't be here," Buffy hissed, her hand gripping the edge of the bar so hard, she was suddenly afraid it was going to shatter in her hands. She relinquished it. "You can't just walk in and-"_

_"Hey, free country. Just because you dip into your Bruce Wayne life here doesn't mean I can't come and enjoy a drink. Plus, it's free." Dean winked at Buffy, the complete opposite of his own set of hostility-fueled words as Buffy started getting pissed. "Perks of knowing the bartender."_

"_Dean-"_

"_I know what you're gonna say," Dean continued, ignoring her interruption. He took another drink. "I'm not here to burst the bubble, Summers, so chill. You weren't answering your phone."_

_Buffy paused, her mind playing catch up with where he was taking this. "I lost it."_

"_I assumed when a man named Ranchero answered." Buffy moved to ask him questions but he didn't stop. "And so here we are. Not like you gave me a lot of options to contact you when you offered to help out with big demon drama… rama. Or whatever." Buffy's mouth snapped shut. "Don't exactly have the time to wander around waiting for you to pop out of the shadows like usual. And it's too late for you to be at work, so..."_

_"What's going on?" Buffy asked, her tone all business, the bar melting away. Like a switch flipping, gone was the ridiculously ill-placed worry that somehow Dean was going to walk over to the table and explain to her friends the very fantastic things she could do with a knife. She knew, rationally, that he would never do that._

_Which made understanding the irrational part of her brain really, really hard. _

_"Found that nest," Dean said with a satisfied smile. "And it's a lot bigger than I thought."_

_"What's 'a lot bigger'?"_

_Dean raised his eyebrows. "Too big for just me to handle."_

_Buffy nodded slowly. Her eyes trailed down to his dark green t-shirt as her mind moved quickly, the decision already made. "When?"_

_"Now. Yesterday. Three days ago... Three weeks ago."_

_Buffy's head didn't stop nodding, her eyes glued to the lapel of his leather jacket when she felt a third presence in the conversation, felt Ted's hand on her lower back and smelled his cologne. Her heart seized all over again as she whipped around, throwing a smile on her face._

"_Hey, I've seen you in here before," he said, glancing at Buffy before looking at Dean again. "You work with Buffy, right?"_

_Buffy turned wide eyes to see what Dean's reaction was going to be, her mouth already opening to supplement Ted when Dean went right in for the plunge._

"_Yeah, I'm an art dealer-"_

"_Artist," Buffy quickly corrected._

"_Artist, yep," Dean said with a cooky smile. "I, uh... deal art too. On the side." Buffy watched in horrified silence as he made an awkward 'caught me lying' face before shaking his head. "Dean."_

"_Ted," Ted replied slowly, an unsure smile on his face. Nobody said anything as Dean glanced at Buffy before looking around. Buffy shoved her arm around Ted's waist, the smile on her face feeling painful. Ted finally broken the silence. "Why don't you join us? You know someone once said the more the merrier. Or something like that."_

_Buffy wanted to squeeze Ted's waist until he popped. And then she wanted to squeeze Dean's head until it popped when he nodded. He freaking nodded his head and smiled and went right along with everything like she hadn't just freaked out on him for being in the same bar. Now he was going to be in the same booth?_

"_Yeah. Sure. That sounds great," Dean said, never looking at Buffy. Probably because he knew the minute he did, her eyes would burn a hole into his cranium._

* * *

You know those moments when you really, really wish the earth would open up and just swallow you whole? This was one of those moments as I watched the carefully built lines that represented the boundaries between oatmeal raisin Buffy and chocolate chip Buffy burn right before my eyes.

* * *

"_Oh... hey." Buffy heard Robin saying when she got an eyeful of Dean - heard the way her voice dropped an octave to saccharine sweet - as Ted led the way towards the booth. Buffy grabbed the pitcher of beer, fighting the urge to throw it up in the air where it would nicely land right on Dean as she remembered Robin noticing Dean before. Like, really noticing him and suddenly everything felt more vivid and hot._

_Maybe toss a little bit of that beer onto Robin too._

* * *

Burning. Lines burning.

* * *

_Marshall grabbed a chair from a nearby table as the introductions went around the booth. And what fun - it was Lily, Robin and Dean on one side and Barney, Ted and Buffy on the other. Like a vomit-filled piñata about to burst._

_Or maybe that was just Buffy's stomach._

"_So you're an artist?" Lily asked, leaning forward to see Dean. It didn't escape Buffy's attention how close Robin was insinuating herself against Dean and how little he seemed to mind as he wrapped an arm across the top of their side of the booth. Not that it bothered her. No. Nope. Not bothered by that. Dean was extremely attractive in his own rugged way, who was she to say anything about Dean and Robin... being Dean and Robin._

_Buffy bit her lip. No. The real thing that bothered her was clearly the fact that somehow this guy, this guy who had once upon a time been a totally random guy, who had somehow become her unofficial hunting partner and somehow someone she actually... liked - as a friend - was now totally insinuating himself into her life. In one huge swoop._

_How easy it would be to kick him under the table._

"_Yeah. Big artist here. But nothing, you know, fancy."_

_Buffy rolled her eyes, grabbing her glass of beer and taking a healthy drink._

"_Me too!" Lily exclaimed before shrugging. "Well, I'm not 'artiste-famous' or anything but I did sell a few pieces."_

"_That's awesome," Dean said, a fake grin on his face as he turned to look at Buffy, who shot him the most dagger-filled glare she could muster. He smiled glibly, looking more than prepared to take her on. "You know, I've got a few connections through my art dealing process. If you have anymore, I'd love to look at them." Buffy could not believe what she was hearing. "You never know, you might be sitting on a pot of gold."_

_Lily made a face - a mixture between pure glee and unrestrained 'who me?' all over her features. "Really? That would be great!"_

"_That would be great!" Marshall kicked in. "Imagine an actual art gallery on top of the vet's office, baby."_

_Dean looked confused as his face showed him going through his last words to see if he had missed something. Buffy rolled her eyes, having been down this road herself, although her eye roll was more prompted by Dean's very presence than anything else._

"_Wait," Dean said. "The vet's office?"_

"_Yeah. My art calmed the dogs there." Buffy watched Marshall grin at Lily, rubbing her back with unrestrained pride._

_Dean nodded slowly. "Huh."_

_The conversation went on from there. It started out with Lily's art and somehow segued into a Robin story about a fluff news piece involving a bouncy ball and a bear before delving into a story of who had the better conquest with Barney._

_Buffy's skin was crawling the entire freaking time. She felt something precarious and awful on the verge of exploding right before her eyes. She watched Dean shooting Robin some of what she was ready to call 'let me eat your panties' looks and Robin was just eating it up. She watched Ted helping Barney talk about someone named Michelle before Marshall took over with a story from his, Lily and Ted's days in college together about another Michelle._

_And Dean just went along with it. Kept going along with it. The seams inside her chest were ready to burst open and spew knotted-up and tangled intestines all over the place. It was like she was watching a doppelganger of Dean - this weird version of Dean who talked, laughed, flirted, joked… acted just… wrong. Not her Dean, in her bar and in her booth._

_As the minutes passed and another round of drinks came, Buffy felt like it was getting hotter. She wondered if she looked as flushed as she felt as she tried to keep up with the conversation, as she tried to convince herself that Dean wasn't doing this on purpose - because he freaking knew how she felt, even if she hadn't outright said it - and that she was actually okay with the world being... wrong. Something shifted behind her and she realized it was Ted's arm. She hadn't even noticed it._

_"Please!" Barney exclaimed, waving his hand dismissively at Dean. "I don't have enough fingers on my hands to count the times I've worn a female's silky underpants. Weak! Pfft."_

_Dean shrugged noncommittally, a small smile on his face when he glanced at Buffy and frowned. She was glaring at him as hard as she could. "Hey, next round's on me, huh?" He grabbed the empty pitcher and got up, brushing past a group of women. Buffy didn't miss the glances they shot him and she wanted to stab herself in the eye with a shard of her beer glass as she simultaneously thought about telling those girls all the incredibly obvious emotional issues he had that he was suddenly doing an amazing job of hiding. Buffy watched him for a split second before bounding up from the table._

_"I'll help you."_

_Sidling up next to him at the bar, Buffy stared at the wall of alcohol again as she wanted to say, "I can't believe you're sitting there, yucking it up with my friends and being a complete idiot!"_

_Instead she said, "When are you leaving?"_

_"What? The bar? Good company over there, Summers." This time when Buffy looked at him, her glare was three seconds from doing physical damage. He held his hands up. "I was just being polite."_

_"You could have said no. You could have said I have another place to be. You could have said I don't know this chick all that well and I don't really like her so no," Buffy said, her voice getting edgier with her words. Dean just stared at her as she continued. "You could have just said... no."_

_"So you really like all this playing the Clark Kent to your Superman?" Dean asked, cocking his head, seeing right through her words of acid. His voice was hard. "Pretending like the other world doesn't exist just because you say so?" He returned her glare tenfold. "I can tell you right now that shit doesn't work."_

_"Oh yeah, because you've had so many awesome relationships to base anything on. And where's your little brother, by the way?" Buffy snapped, shaking her head in aggravation at his ability to cut to the quick before her own words registered. Foot meet mouth - and what a hypocrite you are, foot, since you really don't know jack enough about this guy to shove that down his throat. She turned in time to see Dean turning away. "Dean, I didn't mean that."_

"_Yeah. Well..." Dean shook his head. He pulled out his wallet, snagging a few bills before dropping them in the empty pitcher. He pushed it to Buffy. "For the next round."_

"_Dean, come on-"_

"_No, you know what? Yeah, my life is shit, but at least I can go to sleep at night knowing I'm not pretending otherwise." Buffy winced, crossing her arms. "Too bad you can't say the same. It's taken me a damn long time, but I finally know who I am and I know what I want. Which thankfully involves none of this bullshit," he continued, waving his hand towards their booth. "All the dancing around the truth crap. And I'm okay with that, unlike you. I'm not sticking around with people who don't really know anything about me and what I do and hey, newsflash, that's the pathetic reason you like sticking around with them at all. Yeah, your life's awesome."_

"_That's not what I'm doing," Buffy bit out. "You think I asked for all this? You think I wanted to get back into that life?"_

"_Yeah," Dean said without a pause. "You did. That's why you started hunting again and that's why..." He paused before shaking his head. "Are you really this goddamn blind? When everyone else laughs, you smile. When everyone else tells stories, you zone out. This life isn't you."_

"_How dare you even try to think you know me," Buffy hissed, grabbing his jacket to hold on to him as he started to step away. She glued herself to his body to keep him still, keeping her back to their booth. "Who are you, some pathetic lonely guy, driving around with no one and nothing? Yeah, you are such a great role model."_

"_Right, this lonely pathetic guy you've been going out of your stupid way to find. Who's the fucking pathetic one now?"_

"_Get out of my face," Buffy bit out, digging her nails into his arm before letting go with a little shove. "You don't know anything."_

_Dean chuckled, glancing back at the booth over his shoulder before giving her a knowing look. "Yeah. Sure." Grabbing the pitcher again, he set it in her hands. "Good luck with all that. Maybe I'll be around when your shit hits the fan for a fun game of I-told-you-so."_

_And then he turned away, pushing his way out of the bar. Buffy didn't think twice, leaving the pitcher on the bar and going out after him._

"_Dean," she said, pounding up the stairs as he walked down the street. "Dean!"_

_Glancing over his shoulder, Dean didn't stop. "You better not have left that money just sitting out - I earned that the hard way."_

"_What, pole-dancing?" Buffy snapped as she grabbed his elbow, stopping him. "I still want to help. With the nest." Buffy didn't need to be looking at his face to see what he was thinking but she ignored the 'the shit hath hitteth the faneth' looks._

"_Man, Summers, you are one broken puppy."_

_Buffy felt a white hot anger surge in her chest but she ignored his words. "When are you leaving?" she bit out._

_Dean just stared at her, making Buffy's skin feel like it was on fire._

"_Tonight."_

"_Tonight?"_

"_Did I stutter?" Buffy narrowed her eyes. Her mind flashed to the Central Park thing Ted had wanted to check out and the art showing she had gotten tickets for from Marinna... "Hey," Dean interrupted, holding his hands up. "Don't go out on any limbs here. You've got date night planned, by all means-"_

_That was all it took._

"_I'll be there."_

_When Buffy got back to MacLaren's a few minutes later - after taking a second to walk around the block instead of putting her fists through a wall - she met Ted at the bar._

"_Hey, Dean just ditched out," he said. Carl was filling the pitcher and Buffy wondered what had happened to Dean's money. She turned back to see Ted staring at her before he averted his eyes. "He's kind of a weird dude. I mean, he's cool and all but... He's definitely channeling that tortured-artist-sleep-with-me thing, huh? Which, according to Barney, never works, although Robin had a few points in the positive…"_

_Buffy smiled briefly. She placed her hand on his arm. "Something's come up."_

* * *

I know what you're thinking - I really was a broken puppy... or whatever he said.

And the second thing you're thinking was red alert, red flag, red badness coming on like a gigantic red iceberg.

I was about as obvious as the giant red sign on my forehead saying, "Something's wrong, ask me how!"

Remember when I said I was stubborn? That could also go in the bullheaded category but don't tell anyone I admitted that.

I've always heard those rumors from grownups that you learn from your mistakes and you apply them to your future... I wasn't one of those people.

Obviously.

* * *

"_Something's come up. Marinna asked me a few days ago to go check out some new space outside of town. I kept forgetting to mention it to you, I guess, but she just called me and asked if I could go this weekend." It sounded pretty darn believable, right? Except for the part where she didn't have a phone but hey, semantics. "Are you mad?" Did Ted ever get mad? He did seem much more even-keeled than he normally was..._

_An hour later, Buffy clenched a lightweight backpack in her hands, swinging it back and forth between her fingers as she waited in the dark. A few stragglers happened by followed by a group of twenty-somethings stumbling around, on their happy way in a pub crawl. She heard one of them say something lewd behind her back as they passed and Buffy whipped her head around to glare and tell him off when she heard the familiar purr of the car._

_That precious, gas-guzzling car that sounded like a rhinoceros trying to breathe._

"_Didn't think you'd show," he said through the open window. He looked more than amused as he turned down his radio. He looked freaking smug._

"_I said I would," Buffy said with agitation. The door creaked when she opened it and groaned louder when she slammed it shut. "It was just three hours ago."_

_"Lots can happen." His words were loaded._

_Buffy crossed her arms. "Can we just go?"_


	10. Chapter Ten - July 2015

**Chapter Ten - July 2015**

_dogs of war and men of hate  
__with no cause, we don't discriminate  
__discovery is to be disowned  
__our currency is flesh and bone_

___our currency is flesh and bone_

And so we went. Got to the factory at daybreak, found a motel a bit after that and we went our separate ways room-wise to get some rest. I spent most of the time in my room, staring at the walls and seething about how the night before had gone. All in the name of getting some good "Slayer fire" for the upcoming fight but really, I was just mad.

Who did he think he was saying all that crap? Like he knew me? Like he was one to talk? Like this random dude I happened to talk to every couple of months knew me better than the people I lived with?

So I was pretty angry, yeah.

Anyway, the plan was to go back around noon and do a recon run around before attacking. Get a lay of the land before using the daytime to our advantage.

I think you're beginning to get that the message of this entire story is that things never quite go the way you plan.

Ever, in my case.

Things were going pretty well for about ten minutes - we busted open most of the outer windows and took out at least fifty percent of the sleeping vampires inside in one hit. And then we got inside, the plan to stick to the sunshine-y spots and make sure we didn't get dragged too far inside because the place was huge... You know, a plan of safety and using our brains…

Like I said... never quite the way you plan it.

* * *

_Buffy let out a cry of frustration when three vamps converged, working together to slam her up against the giant thick-pane glass. Her head bounced off the glass too easily, rocking around on her neck as a deep ringing sounded in her ears. She groaned, feeling one of the vampire's use her arm to propel her away from them. Buffy stumbled to the ground, rolling until she hit the opposite end of the large office._

_Blinking harshly to keep unconsciousness at bay, Buffy rolled over and climbed back to her feet, her body moving uncomfortably as she fought for balance before raising her fists. She moved like liquid, her body instinctively covering her wounds and working past them. Time for that later; now was time for the saving of the life and the killing of the vampire._

_But holy moly, she was gonna hurt like hell the next day._

_The fight continued, escalating before calming down before escalating. Buffy's entire body burned with the exertion of having to keep moving, keep fighting, keep killing... Dropping her stubby stake, Buffy moved to grab one of the extras in the band of her pants... except there was suddenly a stake drought._

"_Crap," Buffy whispered. Double crap, triple crap. She had used up all her stakes. Dusting too many vampires turned them into those pencils that ran out of lead even though it was right there. And it wasn't like she made a habit of carrying around a giant stake sharpener._

_Buffy backed up, glancing around for more weapons. She heard the tired grunts of Dean as he fought and she immediately nixed the idea of calling out for more stakes. That's all she needed to complete the best trip ever - a headless Dean when she yelled at him, distracting him, because she ran out of wood. As if she wasn't still angry enough with him after all the crap he had spewed on about the night before and then giving her - HER, like she was the one who had been a jerk - the cold shoulder all day. She wouldn't be able to yell at him if he was headless._

_So no on the getting help front._

_She vaguely remembered the entrance of the factory, the long wooden rails that were rotting outside and she frowned. Great. Outside of the factory a.k.a. across the damn factory. Did the vampires have to use such a gigantic space? Despite all the punching and kicking and bruising and slaying, she had yet to see any real reason they were in this space other than massing large numbers. Which was never good, even if the reason wasn't obvious. Vampires had the tendency to be persnickety which meant they had someone strong leading them if they managed to get this many together and keep the location under such tight wraps._

_So, there were a lot of not-good-things happening here._

_As a circle of six vamps moved towards her, Buffy felt a shiver of nervous energy crackle across her spine. They really couldn't have signed up for a worse idea. They were severely outnumbered - one Slayer and one reckless human being did not make a right._

_"Come on, sweet girl," an old man hissed at her, his face looking like an elephant's ass from the wrinkles twisted in his demonic brow. "You smell so delicious."_

_"Yeah, who set up delivery?" a young punk cracked from the other side. Definitely something going on if Grandpa over there wasn't wanting to throw sticks at that stupid kid. He looked like he fell face first into a box of needle pins._

_"Now, now, fellas," Buffy said, her eyes scanning her surroundings. Right, she'd just have to mow her way through. "There's plenty to go around. Or haven't you heard about Slayer blood - a little goes a long way."_

_"A Slayer?" a female said, her eyes darkening. Purpose filled her voice and Buffy felt like slapping herself. Secret identities were just so passé apparently. "You won't get far."_

_"Yeah, well," Buffy said. "I've got this crazy wild urge to keep on breathing."_

_The woman chortled and for a split second, her eyes danced over Buffy's shoulder. Buffy stiffened, her mind jumping to conclusions at what she was looking at just as the soft twang of an arrow splitting through the air behind her reached her ears. Her body was already moving to duck down and thinking about how awesome it would be if the angle got Grandpa in front of her, but she was too late. Too late and too distracted. She managed to shift enough for the arrow to splice through the middle of her back on the left, embedding itself in her insides as it tented through her shirt in the front._

_The pain was like white hot finger of fire racing through her body as she paused. A thick rush of white noise filled her ears as she looked down at the arrow poking through her body where no arrow should be, her face twisted in pain. She thought she heard Dean yelling something. She thought she heard the vampires giggling like mad little jokers in front of her as a series of black spots collected before her eyes._

_Not good. Very bad. Did it hit something vital, like… well, everything felt vital but couldn't some of the stuff in there be hurt and she could live. Blood was already pooling, leaking down her stomach and Buffy thought about when Cordy had gotten skewered. She'd been fine, which meant she'd be fine, right? Not a lot of other 'poke you through the stomach' wounds to think on… _

_Buffy stumbled backward as the pain infiltrated her lower half, her hands flying out to catch on something to lean on as the vampires advanced. She heard the twang of the arrow fired again, followed by another. She felt something hit her shoulder before something else poked at her thigh. It was like her muscles were doing a new twitching dance in response to the pain - would be nice if there was a way to tell them to calm the hell down, now wasn't the time._

_God, everything HURT._

_Crap. Her mind instantly flew to Dean, wondering where he was, if he was okay; she wondered if she should yell for him to run, get to that wonderfully healing sunlight… which sounded so darn good right now, her limbs were feeling kinda chilly._

_Yeah, sunbathing was a great hobby._

_"Buffy, get the hell down!"_

_Dean didn't give her a chance to respond as his body rocketed into her eyes, knocking her to the ground. He landed on top of her, wrenching the arrows in her body which sent a series of fireworks off inside her brain. The pain that had felt like a pleasant numbing coolness just a second ago was now exploding. Buffy cried out, tears welling. Arrows. She was… carrying a lot of arrows. Bad._

* * *

Thinking coherently is also really hard when you've become a walking pincushion.

* * *

_"Plan B, plan b, always have a plan b," she heard Dean mumbling next to her as he scrambled to his feet before pausing when he saw whatever was sticking out of her. "Crap."_

_It clearly wasn't as bad as it felt because he got up, his eyes on whatever was happening behind her, grabbing her arm and forcing her to her feet._

_"We gotta move," was all he said, his grip fierce but Buffy's body was made of Jell-O and she stumbled over her feet, her hand on the arrow in her stomach. She felt it pricking her palm from pressing too hard as her brain registered smelling gas, the smell gaining strength as it curdled in her nose. Oh man, that wasn't good - wasn't there something about smelling something when you were hit with something that had to do with dying… "Buffy!"_

_Buffy looked up, feeling like her head was living in a city of fog, as Dean bent over and she saw the arrow in his shoulder, one that had been meant for her… A tear slid down her cheek as everything around her came back in full 3D, surround sound force and something hot licked at her back. She wanted to turn and see what it was but Dean was crouched in front of her, his hand on her cheek, forcing her to look at him._

_"Get your ass up right now, Summers, and move it!" he snapped, his voice more gravely than normal. Buffy felt his thumb slip on her cheek as he brushed away blood. "Get up!"_

_Buffy nodded slowly, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath. But instead of the clean dusty factory air she had been inhaling a moment ago, she sucked in a lungful of smoke just as a vampire whose clothes were on fire barreled past them, slamming into Dean._

_Buffy screamed his name, her body moving on instinct to push the vampire off as they landed in a fire-y heap. The arrows were no longer there in Buffy's mind as a lick of fire hit her hand. Looking around quickly, Buffy grabbed the first thing she saw, a heavy piece sheet metal that was already getting hot from the flames building up behind her._

_Right. Plan B indeed. Would have been nice to know burning everything down was Plan B._

_The edge of the metal cut into her hand as she used it to shove the vampire off of Dean. He had a patch of fire on his jeans that he quickly patted out while the vampire rolled away, an inhuman scream on its lips before it burst into a pile of dust. But Buffy wasn't staring at that - all she saw was the blossoming wound in the center of Dean's stomach._

_Dean was already moving, scrambling to his feet and kicking the metal out of Buffy's hands. He grabbed her hand, their fingers slipping from the bloody wound on her palm, the dirt on his stinging the open gash. They made it about three feet before Buffy reached back and ripped the arrow from the back of her thigh._

_Seriously going to hurt like hell tomorrow._

_Buffy watched in horror as they scuttled through the debris of the factory, the stray vampires and falling embers as the fire licked up the walls quickly, the dry land and abandoned factory the perfect kindle. Jeez, what the hell had Dean used?_

_Buffy's free hand was on the arrow in her stomach, the arrow in her shoulder tearing at her muscles as she limped after Dean as fast as she could. The bright light of the sun streaming through the open windows was so welcoming Buffy almost started weeping just as a loud crack echoed in the building followed by a thundering groan before a beam of sunlight incinerated a vampire heading for them._

_The roof was collapsing._

* * *

I guess I could have also prefaced this part with Murphy's Law hates me the most.

* * *

_The loss of blood was starting to slow Buffy's movements as Dean shouted something at her. She couldn't hear what it was as another screech echoed in the building, quickly swallowed by the roar of the fire eating everything in its path. The heat was suffocating behind her, catching up so fast she found herself hoping the blood loss was quicker - because getting burned alive?_

_What sort of bucket list would even include that?_

_A blood-stained hand popped out from behind a fallen pillar, the chocolate skin riddled with small pieces of metal in various places from whatever Dean had done to start the fire, the fingers grabbing Buffy's ankle. With a shout, Buffy's finger dug into Dean's hand but the blood was too slick for a grip and she fell._

_"Blood. I can smell your blood," the vampire moaned, his eyes crazed. He hissed with pleasure as he pulled Buffy's injured leg closer, baring his fangs in preparation to bite her. Buffy caught a glimpse of his lower half. It was gone. "Slayer's blood… such sweet elixir, please."_

_"Get off," Buffy growled, her words slurring as she kicked him with her other leg but her movements were sluggish from the blood loss and he burned with anticipation of the bite coming. Dean's boot suddenly connected with the vampire's head, rocking it to the side. He leaned down, digging his hands under her armpits to lift her as the vampire came back, driven by pure bloodlust and bit Dean's calf._

_"Son of a bitch!" Dean roared, dropping Buffy to the ground before shoving his fist into the vampire's throat. It squealed like a pig in a fryer, but it didn't let go, its instincts taking over as it sought out blood, any blood. Instead of using the stake she saw in his pants, Buffy watched Dean move quickly, ripping his leg from the vampire's mouth, leaving behind a chunk of skin and denim._

_Dean stood, limping away before reaching out for her. He heaved her up and the room tilted wildly as Buffy fell into his arms, her eyes visiting a place of pure darkness before the world flickered back to reality._

_"Stand, goddamn it!" he snapped and the voice sounded far away. Like he was standing at the end of a long tunnel and she wondered why the hell he was all the way over there… "We have to move, Buffy. Look at me!"_

_Another crack echoed from the ceiling and instead of seeing what Dean wanted at the opposite end of wherever he was she looked up at the sky. And sky she saw. The remaining ceiling was on fire, smoke billowing out, clearing the air inside the factory for a split second. Just enough for her to see a tumble of rocks falling right for them._

"_Dean!"_

_Buffy didn't have to tell her body to move; she didn't know where she found the strength but her feet were suddenly underneath her and she shoved Dean away as hard as she could. He flew away at the force, a foot catching the corner of a desk and he fell back, slamming his head on the concrete floor just as the rocks slammed into Buffy._

_This time, the darkness stuck around._

* * *

Isn't this the best story ever?

Alright, wrong person to ask. Or thing. You know, I never got the distinction – I mean, you're a demon inside a human body. A thing inside a human. So I guess you're a human thing. Whatever.

Anyway, thinking back on that day is like looking through broken binoculars. You know you should be able to see something, know it's right there but all you see are cracks and lines and everything is blurred and messed up and no matter how hard you try, you can't fix the glass. That's what blood loss is like - knowing something was there but unable to do anything about it.

* * *

_The first thing Buffy was aware of when the fog started clearing was, "Ow."_

_Lots and lots of ow. Shifting her body felt like she was shoving it into a blender. And putting it on high or super spin or 'turn your muscles to mulch' mode. At least she was laying on something soft. Bonus._

_Or was she suffering from a massive concussion or hemorrhage and she thought the concrete floor was soft?_

_An explosion of images shattered in her head as she saw the rock waterfall cascading from the ceiling, right where she was standing with Dean… oh god, Dean…_

_"No! Dean!"_

_The scream left Buffy's throat in a dry rasp as she shot up in the bed, her hands above her head to protect herself from the rocks about to collide with her skull. She felt the arrow wounds pulling on her body and a sharp sting on her cheek while she waited… for nothing._

_Buffy opened her eyes, her lids feeling like sandpaper; her throat was pissed as hell that she was trying to use it at all after all the smoke-breathing she had done. Had done._

_Had done._

_The room was dark save for the beginning light of dawn from behind the blinds - dawn? - and she whipped her head around, hissing in pain but not giving an ounce of hell that she felt something tearing on her skin all over her body and something wet leaking out as she instantly recognized the motel they had chosen._

_But this wasn't her room… Buffy's eyes flew around before spotting the grimy jeans on the bloodied legs lying next to her on the bed._

_"Oh god," she croaked, relief and horror at the sight of him consuming her as another tear fell, sliding through a cut on her cheek. It stung worse as a few more followed and she turned to Dean where he laid on his uninjured side, facing her. "Dean? Dean?"_

_He was still dressed in the clothes they had been wearing during the raid and he was covered in cuts and bruises and the smoggy residue of the fire. Buffy didn't even think; didn't care that she might hurt him, that she was hurting herself. She started shaking him, willing him to open his eyes. "Dean. Dean!"_

_Her vision blurred as she waited for him to respond. God, what if he was dead? What if he hadn't survived, what if Dean was gone and…_

* * *

For all my brain knew, rationality was actually a country on the other side of the world.

* * *

_"Dean!" Buffy snapped, her voice cracking from her dry throat, her lips feeling like they were made of tissue paper. Relief bamboozled her when she felt him moving underneath her hand._

_"Christ," he groaned, his eyes still closed. He rolled closer, brushing her hand away and burying his face into a pillow. "Knock it the hell off."_

_"Oh god, thank god," Buffy breathed, followed by a sob. She fell down on him, wrapping her arm around his shoulder as more tears fell._

* * *

I will say this about blood loss - it messes with your head in some weird ways. For a split second there, I was convinced I was dreaming. La la land for Buffy, that I was just nightmaring it out with the upcoming raid but then not so much.

And instead of the

* * *

fog the lack of blood in the body had given me, everything was suddenly more vivid and painful and… real.

I lost it.

* * *

_"I thought I lost you… I-I thought you were dead. I saw you fall and hit your head and that vampire and then the rocks and the fire and-"_

_"Hey, okay, it's okay. Shh," Dean said. She felt his arms pulling her closer to him before he seemed to change his mind, letting them hang loosely before awkwardly rubbing her back. But she didn't want that. Buffy held him closer, pushing herself against his chest as everything caught up. She wanted to know he was alive, that he was here lying next to her and not bludgeoned to death back at that factory. She wanted… "Hey, I'm fine. You're fine. We're fine."_

_Buffy just shook her head, pinching her lips together to keep the cry inside. Her face was catching on fire from the salty tears in her wounds and she rubbed against the ratted t-shirt he wore, breathing him in. Gone was anything Dean-related and in its place was the smell of burning building. Which only reminded her of how close…_

_A long moment passed before rationality started burrowing into her brain and then everything else followed as she realized they were in the motel. They were safe and alive._

_"I'm sorry," Buffy whispered, squeezing her fingers into his shoulder before forcing herself to let him go. Another bubble of blubbers was building in her chest and Buffy wiped her face roughly, rolling onto her back to stare at the ceiling. The nice neutral ceiling that was, thankfully, intact and not falling to pieces. "Sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me. I-"_

_"Hey," Dean said, lifting himself up on his elbow to look down at her. More tears floated about in her vision as she stared at the ceiling, not willing to look at him as he tried to catch her eye. She would just cry more. Like a big freaking non-Slayer who had never seen a fight. God, what was wrong with her? She just felt… way too overwhelmed. And the ceiling was so the definition of underwhelmed. "Buffy, look at me."_

_Buffy shook her head, closing her eyes. "I'm okay, I'm sorry. I'm just…" She offered a watery smile, embarrassment getting pretty darn fat inside her head as Dean moved more, talked more and stared more. "I don't know, I'm sorry." She gave a watery chuckle. "Happy you lived. Go you."_

_Hot shame filled her chest as she swallowed, not feeling the bed move even a little. She still kept her eyes shut, a tear that felt like it was scorching her skin sliding out the corner of her eye and dipping over her ear and into her hair._

* * *

I had no idea what was wrong with me. I had survived some pretty hairy situations - including the world ending and sending someone I loved more than life itself to Hell. This was just… pure hysteria. And what's the definition of hysteria? Extremely exaggerated, and in my case unexplained - at the time at least - emotions that fill you to the brim with its craziness and makes you emote all over the place.

That was me. Good mental imagery, huh?

* * *

_Buffy took a deep, shaky breath, trying to push it all back down._

_The pain aspect of the entire event was starting to take precedence again, knowing Dean was alive helped elevate that, and she started mentally taking evaluation of her body parts, feeling a level of sanity coming back to her as she found something else to focus on._

_Right. Head still on shoulders, good start. Shoulders seemed okay except for that nagging tugging where the arrow had gotten her but that hadn't gone through. Right, like the stomach. Buffy stretched, already feeling her healing powers having kicked in. The wound was closed, thank the stomach gods, it was just tender as hell. If she hadn't been up since early afternoon, that was about sixteen hours of sleep under her belt._

_And god, she was hungry and-_

_Dean cupped her cheek, his thumb rolling underneath her eye to wipe away the salty residue and her eyes snapped open at the warm touch, his face barely an inch from hers. Anticipation like she hadn't felt in years suddenly roared through her body as he hovered over her, his smoke-smudged brow furrowed, his eyes dark. She stared back, eyes wide, leaning into the hand cradling her cheek._

_Buffy bit her lip as he watched at her with an unreadable expression; her eyes danced down to the freckles on his nose - one of the first things she had noticed about him, she remembered - and to his cracked lips before finding his eyes again._

_Buffy felt the air around her getting hot and thick and she tried to take a deep breath as he did nothing. He just stayed there, staring at her… pitying her probably because she obviously cared way too much about him, this random guy, this guy who-_

_He kissed her._


	11. Chapter Eleven - July 2015

**Chapter Eleven - July 2015**

_invisible transfers, long-distance calls  
__hollow laughter in marble halls  
__steps have been taken, a silent uproar  
__has unleased the dogs of war_

Did you see that coming? I sure as hell didn't see that coming. And I know you're thinking I'm a crazy and stupid person for not seeing that coming.

You know what else I didn't see coming? Remember Bad Land?

* * *

_Buffy moaned into Dean's mouth, arching into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. She felt his hand snaking up her back to the nape of her neck, pushing her closer to his chest. Buffy opened her lips, granting him access that he readily took as he moved against her on the bed, neither aware of their wounds while Buffy twisted, throwing her leg over his hip._

_The kiss was a spark and they were the kindle. Buffy wasn't sure if it was the extreme near death experience they had both just had or if there was some serious fire smoke poisoning that had happened but she didn't care. She didn't care that it should probably hurt to kiss with how dry her lips and skin were, with how painful her wounds were despite her quick healing. She didn't pause to ask him if the hole in his leg from the vampire bite was alright or if the wound in his gut was deep._

_She just didn't care._

_All that mattered was Dean: kissing him, holding him, being near, with him. Nothing else mattered. _

_The world fell away and all that mattered was Dean's lips. The shivers along her back when his hand ran down her side, the fingers at her neck squeezing, just enough to insinuate, to hint at what he could do, make her feel._

_Emotions she couldn't name were slamming like hockey pucks in her chest the more he touched her. Everything was coming back to her, every little touch, every little whisper or glance or suggestion…_

_God, she wanted him. She had wanted him, she just hadn't even entertained the idea. Her body had known, her heart had known but her mind had had a stranglehold on it until the possibility of him being dead completely destroyed that carefully built wall in her subconscious._

* * *

And for good reason. Hello… Ted? Remember Ted? It was like I was completely oatmeal raisin Buffy here. Like chocolate chip Buffy had never existed, like nothing had ever happened in New York, like I had always been slaying and like I had always just existed… with Dean.

It was powerful, intoxicating… everything that was wrong that felt so right.

* * *

_Now… now there was nothing but her and Dean. Like crazy possessed animals, nothing existed but each other and the bed. And unfortunately a few obstacles such as clothes and battle wounds…_

_Buffy shoved her hand underneath Dean's flannel, trying to push it down his shoulders when her nails grazed where the arrow had hit him. Dean immediately stiffened and cursed against her lips, pulling back with a hiss and Buffy stopped touching him altogether._

"_Oh god, I'm so sorry," she whispered. She felt that familiar burn in the back of her throat indicating the wild emotions in her head wanting to let loose and fly free but she swallowed hard, pushing it down. God, when did she become so damn emotional about everything? The next thing she knew she would be crying because someone called blue the color purple. "I didn't-"_

"_I'm fine," Dean grunted, rolling to his side and yanking the flannel off. Buffy sat up to follow, wincing when she felt her own arrow wound tugging at her muscles but he pushed her back down gently as he moved to lay next to her again. "Are you okay?"_

"_I'm-I'm okay," Buffy said, taking a deep shaky breath. She felt her heart skip a few beats when his hand landed on her stomach before he paused, like he wasn't sure what to do. And then he pulled it back. She frowned. "Dean?"_

"_I meant with this," he said, his voice gruff. His mossy eyes said everything that he didn't want to put words to, everything that she knew was floating around on the peripheral, waiting to be addressed, needing to be addressed. Things that couldn't just be ignored, that couldn't just go away. "Is this…?"_

"_Okay?" Buffy whispered back, her voice cracking. She bit her lip, her eyes watering, stinging the already swollen skin there from all the tears she had already shed. Buffy looked away, her chest burning as she realized what she was about to do. What she wanted to do. What she really, really badly wanted to do. What every molecule in her stupid body was saying, "Absolutely, yes, this is what we all want. Please don't stop touching us?"_

_Unbidden, an image of Ted rose in her mind and a whole different set of rocks landed on her chest, squeezing the life out of her lungs. These ones were heavier. Made of guilt. And shame. And a slice of terror that none of it mattered as far as she was concerned… Buffy felt her lips tingle as she remembered Dean's kisses, his hands on her body, his every touch telling her exactly what he wanted just as much as she did…_

_God, what was she doing?_

_She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head._

_Dean let out a heavy breath and Buffy felt the bed dip as he rolled away. She opened her eyes to watch his progression, something deep inside her rending as she stared at his back. He was rubbing his face roughly, too roughly. She could hear the stubble on his face colliding with his calloused hands, his hunter's hands. The hands that had been touching her so gently, so…_

_Buffy swallowed. So not going there. She could never go there. God, what the hell had she been thinking?_

_Buffy felt another rush of tears coming up and she pushed herself up and off the bed, shuffling painfully to the bathroom. Her back burned with what she imagined was probably his gaze before she closed the door behind her._

_Stabbing on the light, Buffy's face crinkled with a soundless sob, more hot tears streaming down her cheeks. What the hell kind of person was she? Hey, one life or death situation and you were free to do anything and everything? Even Dean - Dean Winchester, he who put himself out there as a man of questionable morals and ethics - knew. He knew that there was a line and that they had been chugging right toward it without a damn care or thought in the world._

_And what did it mean that she hadn't cared? That she hadn't taken two seconds to realize that she belonged to another, that she was with someone else and that doing… what they had been doing was… bad._

_She couldn't even think his name. She couldn't bring up his face. It didn't… matter. Why didn't it matter? What was wrong with her?_

_Buffy brought a shaking hand to her aching eyes. Everything hurt and the longer she stood and the longer she wanted to just cry and rip out her own stupid viscera, the more everything throbbed. They had just come straight from the crime scene, she could only imagine the damage on her body - a shower sounded divine._

_And full of distractions and avoidance and other such vividly wonderful things she wondered why she wasn't lunging for the shower curtain right then. And she had thought this little fieldtrip had been a good idea? First, the worst raid in raiding history and then-_

_A sturdy knock rapped the door and Buffy jumped, spinning around. She stared at the door for a split second, her heart and lungs clamoring together to climb right out her throat and slip down the sink drain. Wiping at her eyes and nose, Buffy opened the door._

_Dean was on the other side, staring awkwardly at the door she peeked out from behind. He held up a First Aid Kit, clearing his throat._

"_I, uh… I didn't check your wounds. When we got back." Buffy must have been staring at him like he spontaneously grew a second and third nose because he shook the kit. "I was waiting for you to wake up but I fell asleep."_

_Buffy swallowed. "Oh." Another awkward second passed before she nodded, stepping back with a little limp from her leg wound to open the door._

"_I won't take long."_

"_Okay," she said. The little voice in the back of her head thought it would be a great idea to remind him that she was a Slayer - that she didn't really have the healing problems normal humans did and that even a huge hole in her gut was probably going to be okay._

_She didn't say anything though._

_Something had clearly changed in the last few minutes between what had happened on the bed and now. Or maybe changed was the wrong word - recognized made more sense. Something had been recognized and that something was extremely dangerous. And just bad. And extremely frowned upon because of the bad and the danger._

_He started with the cut on her forehead and the gash on her cheek. They were already healing, closing up and he cleaned away enough blood to make sure. Buffy kept her eyes trained on the wall over his shoulder the entire time, forcing her eyes to stay focused when she felt her heart rate picking up the longer his fingers stayed on her skin._

_They had literally hunted next to each other for months, always touching, always talking, always within range just like this… but nothing like this at the same time. Something had definitely been recognized if the seizure her heart was having was any indication. She felt like she was ready to melt into a pile of goopy crap right here. Leaning back against the counter, Buffy dug her hands into the countertop._

_Dean made quick work of her smaller cuts before moving on to her shoulder. She turned around, facing the mirror as he stood behind her and he took her shirt in hand, using the jagged hole the arrow had left and ripping the shirt enough to get to the wound. Buffy flinched at the movement but not because of the shirt or the stupid wound._

_No. Something else._

"_Sorry," he murmured. Buffy shook her head, not trusting herself to speak as he examined it. "It looks like it's going to heal fine."_

_His voice was deeper than normal, Buffy noted, her mind getting caught in a tailspin before she cleared her throat. His hands stilled for a second and she felt the urge to lean back against him. Bad._

"_What happened?" Buffy asked, her voice cracking. She coughed. "Besides the Plan B plan that I didn't know anything about."_

_Dean's touch was soft on her skin as he poured something alcohol-y onto a swab and cleaned the area. She tried to remember that those hands were mostly used for killing things and that really had the opposite effect. Way to go, brain, way to take one for the team._

"_The roof caved, which was what knocked you out," Dean said as he tossed the used swab into the sink. Buffy looked down at it for something to do with her eyes and saw the dried dirty blood all over it. "Which, since we're on that topic, was a goddamn stupid thing of you to do."_

_Buffy didn't rise to the topic like she normally would have. She didn't say anything as Dean continued._

"_Bleeding out, practically to death, and you throw me out the way. It was reckless and stupid." He shook his head, repositioning the strips of her shirt that he had torn. "Don't do that again."_

_Nudging her shoulder, Buffy took the hint, swallowing hard as she turned to face him again. "Don't be an idiot," she said, her voice low. He didn't reply. He bent down so he was face to face with her stomach. She stared at the top of his head as he reached for her shirt. His hand paused, waiting for invitation and she nodded._

_He lifted her blood-soiled shirt, not showing a sign of unease with the blood or the wound. Buffy's breathing got a little labored when he smoothed the skin around the wound. She bit the inside of her lip as he worked. It was already closing, thankfully. The only thing left was something resembled a moon crater only still quite bloody. Dean folded her shirt up, his fingers doing more touching than Buffy thought was possible. And he was barely touching her._

_Bad._

"_I got knocked out for a second and when I came to, the roof was really coming down. Vamps were getting burned all over the place and the fire was eating it all up. You were completely out when we got out of there."_

"_And came back here?" Buffy asked with a wince as he cleaned out the dried blood inside the wound. He nodded. "I'm surprised you didn't… take me to the hospital. I remember being really out of it. Like, hey, look-at-those-monkeys-on-the-ceiling out of it."_

_Dean smirked at her stomach. "I tried. I was freaking the hell out, but you almost broke my wrist when I told you what I was doing."_

"_What?"_

"_You came to for about five minutes, rambling on about something or other. You kept calling me a jackass," he said with a smile, not looking up at her and she chuckled. "When I told you where we were going, you lost it. So we came back here because you were about to throw yourself out of the moving vehicle. I was going to make you go when you were knocked out but then I fell asleep and…"_

_Here they were…_

"_Sorry," Buffy said, not sure if she meant the everything that happened, almost breaking his wrist, losing so much blood that he felt like she had to go to the hospital…_

"_Stop saying that crap," Dean said. "We made it out, that's all that matters. Turn around." Buffy did as instructed, bracing her hands on the counter again as he lifted the back of her shirt higher to see the entrance wound. "I broke the arrow off, I don't think any wood got in there."_

_Buffy just nodded as his hands skimmed across her back. She broke out in goose bumps and almost lamely commented on how cold it was in the room. Instead, she bit her tongue this time._

"_It's impressive," he said, his voice low. Buffy stared at the parts of him she could see in the mirror before glancing over her shoulder in question. "The healing."_

"_Oh. Yeah."_

_Silence reigned once again as he worked. Buffy winced every five seconds but not because of his gentle cleaning. No. Something else. Bad, all bad._

_Buffy jumped when he cleared his throat, the sound bouncing off the walls like a hopped up slinky._

"_Uh, the uh…" Dean cleared his throat again, his voice even as he continued, "The wound in your leg. I can't get to it with these jeans on."_

"_Oh. Right," was all Buffy said, but she didn't move. The thought of her pants coming off anywhere near him sounded like the best and the worst thing in the entire world. And that list was gigantic. Her fingers itched and she felt the buckle of her belt burning against her skin before she swallowed hard. "Here."_

_She reached back and ripped the jeans for him, ignoring the sting in her shoulder and her abdomen. The cut on her hand felt like it was being grilled alive as she tore the material, making a big enough hole for him to work. Of course it was supposed to be a small hole._

_She practically shredded the jeans in her haste for a solution, exposing her entire thigh and she felt the cool air hit her bottom. Buffy closed her eyes, embarrassment and horror filling her. God, this was all so… bad. What had happened and how? Wasn't it just twenty-four hours ago that she was arguing with him in the bar? Like normal hunting people did? No tension, no weirdness, none of this awful stuff happening right then…_

_She heard Dean take a deep breath and that did more to her nervous system than anything ever before his fingers touched her skin. The goose bumps that erupted irritated where the arrows had hit her and she concentrated on that. Pain was good. Pain was excellent and maybe she could start taking up some really painful therapeutic techniques that included hanging cement blocks from her ears…_

_He worked swiftly and easily, cleaning out hole in her leg. He made another comment about healing but Buffy barely heard him over the sound of her heart beating the crap out of her chest plate. Her lungs physically hurt when he applied a bandage to the spot from her not breathing._

"_Okay," he said, standing. "All done."_

"_Thanks," she said, her voice drowning in the stunningly awful black hole of an elephant standing between them. Buffy watched him in the mirror as he shifted around her to throw some more bloody cotton balls into the sink and Buffy finally let go of her death grip on the counter. "Uh, do you need me to do… the same? For you?"_

_Dean's face was the perfect image of pure unadulterated nothingness as he met her gaze in the mirror. His eyes, though, were hot and liquidy, starting a hot and liquidy sensation to build in her body that was making thinking hard. It was the strangest thing in the world to think because how could eyes be liquidy? Sure, Angel's had been liquidy but that's because he had spent the last couple of centuries perfecting his leering abilities… Dean's were…_

_Buffy licked her lips, her breathing getting heavy as they just stared at each other in the mirror, everything that had happened at the warehouse, in the room, in here… hell, everything that had happened over the last several months flew between them._

_Wow, she had done a darn good job of ignoring every single sign between them ever. She felt like someone had turned off the denial switch in her brain and everything was now more recognizable._

_Stupid, stupidly recognizable._

"_No," he finally said, his tone unsure and the disappointment that walloped Buffy in the stomach was palpable as he shook his head, turning his back to her. He didn't meet her eyes again as he continued, "No, I'm good. You should go get some rest. We'll be taking off tonight."_

_Buffy let out a shaky breath. "Yeah. Okay. I'll go…" Buffy swallowed, pointing to the door of his motel room. She glanced at him but he wasn't looking at her. Instead he stared at the floor, like it was a mosaic of the utmost importance and he couldn't look away. She bit her lip. "I'll go."_

"_Yeah."_

_That was it. Nothing else. Buffy could tell by the way he was standing that he was obviously in physical pain although whether that was from his wounds or from the epic thunderstorm of whatever the hell was happening between them, Buffy couldn't tell. And then she started feeling stupid and foolish as he didn't look up and she nodded, heading out._

_She was the one in a relationship. She was the one out here in the middle of nowhere, pursuing something that should never - could never - be pursued… Was that what she was doing? How was he seeing something she couldn't, was she really that stupid?_

* * *

The answer was yes. Although you probably already guessed that, judging by the judgy look you're sending my way. Hey, buddy, you try being in that position and see how you do, huh? Not easy.

Nothing is ever easy. Even when it's supposed to be easy and old terrain and already traveled and blah blah blah…

But I just never seem to learn. Life lessons bounce off me like I'm rubber.

So I went back to my room. I took a shower, I reapplied my own bandages and I laid down and I… stared at the ceiling. In my defense, it was a great ceiling. A lot of cracks and water stains; provided a nice natural maze for my eyes to follow for the next several hours.

* * *

_Buffy couldn't stop thinking about how hard it was to breathe. Like, breathing should be easy. Natural. Her body should just go through the motions, know what it has to do because oxygen was pretty imperative to living. And she liked living. And so obviously, she should like breathing._

_But right now, it was so not easy._

_She couldn't settle the host of zebras trampling her organs. With every minute that passed, she felt worse. It wasn't nausea or fear or adrenaline… it was nerves. Like she was waiting for that final push before she exploded but nothing ever happened._

_It was making her want to crawl the walls._

_Her room was dead silent. A motel in the middle of the day had that effect, sure, since no one actually sat all day in their rented rooms. They were for sleeping and holding your items while you weren't there. She should be sleeping… she was tired. Dead exhausted and her body ached in all sorts of places she had forgotten even existed._

_But she couldn't sleep. Too wired. And for the wrong reasons. The entire warehouse incident wasn't even on her mind, and that had the potential to be front and center._

_No. All she could think about was Dean._

_Along with crawling the walls, she was also crawling the ceiling. Probably to get away from the stupid thoughts that were plaguing her like locust but they just followed her wherever she went. She followed one crack along the ceiling until it led to a wall and so she picked another one and that just led her to another wall. All walls. Stupid walls and stupid not breathing and stupid brain not thinking about anything else._

_She had to get a grip. Whatever had happened back in that warehouse, whatever had changed between them in such a short time was dangerous. Too dangerous. And really out of the blue since things had been fine between them not even a day ago. What had happened?_

_Maybe that was why she couldn't rest: the situation warranted a lot of thinking and figuring out only she couldn't concentrate enough on one thought to do just that._

"_I would like to sleep," she said to the empty room. "Please let me sleep. I'm tired. And because I'm tired, I would like to sleep. So let's… sleep." Buffy closed her eyes but instead of the welcoming arms of slumber, she found the welcoming arms of something else. Her eyes snapped open in exasperation. "Alright fine. You don't want to sleep, brain, that's just fine. I'll go take a walk until I feel like collapsing. Until you find it too hard to be awake."_

_Buffy rolled off the bed, her determination like a proud badge as she grabbed her sneakers and slid them on, still talking to herself. "Doesn't that sound like fun, collapsing? Maybe it will be in an empty field and we'll get eaten by scarecrows. Golly, let's do this."_

_Her sarcasm followed her out the door, her limp noticeably better as she slammed the door behind her, yanking the key in to lock the door._

_What felt like an eternity later, Buffy arrived back at the motel. The sun was high in the sky, making her eyes ache from the brightness. She was sweating and panting slightly as she paused in front of the door, wiping her brow. Not a wise thing to do, the walking, mostly because sweat inside wounds - no matter how quickly they were closing - stung._

_Buffy gripped the key in the pocket of her sweatshirt, staring at the door. She turned to look at the one right next door, worrying her bottom lip before looking back at the one in front of her. She pulled the key out, ready to use it… instead, she left in her pocket and knocked on the door._

_The passing cars in the parking lot ceased long enough for her to hear that he had been watching TV and he had just switched it off at the sound of her knocking. The longest moment ever seemed to sludge by as she waited, staring at the door, willing it to both stay closed and open. The moment turned into another before another and she started counting to thirty, knowing when she hit that high number she was going to do the right thing and go back to her room._

_Alone._

_Where she belonged._

_She was at twenty-three when the door opened._

_His face was blank as he stared at her. His eyes danced around her, checking out the scenery behind her before he looked at her again._

"_Hey," she said softly._

_Dean grunted. "You okay?"_

_Buffy just stared at him and he didn't need to ask questions. He looked down, shaking his head. "Buffy, go back to your room."_

_She didn't respond, staring at the crown of his head. She licked her lips uncertainly, making them feel drier than they already were as she looked inside his room before over to where he was gripping the doorjamb. His fingers were turning yellow from the pressure and she looked back to see he was staring at her. She met his gaze._

"_This is stupid," he finally groaned, shaking his head before chuckling. He looked at her pointedly. "Really stupid."_

"_Yeah."_

"_Alright, good, we agree." Dean released the jamb, pointing to her room. "Now go."_

_Buffy didn't. Buffy didn't do a lot of things in that moment. It was like she was looking through a tunnel as everything she had been thinking for the last few hours came to an abrupt conclusion. Nothing else mattered. She didn't care what waited for her back in New York. She didn't care that Dean was trying to be the good guy, doing the right thing. She didn't care that she should be doing the right thing too._

_She just didn't care._

"_Buffy-"_

_She cut him off, her feet moving of their own accord as she stepped into his room, wrapping one hand around his neck to bring him to her height while the other grabbed a handful of his t-shirt, pulling him in closer as their lips met. And just like that morning, the kiss was the spark and they were the kindle waiting to burn as the kiss came to life. Buffy moaned into his mouth, standing as tall as she could, trying to get closer. And then his arms were around her, pulling her in, crowding her against his chest._

_Buffy didn't know who was where or what they were doing. Everything was about the sensations raining through her body as he mauled her mouth and she returned the favor. He smelled like the cheap soap stocked in the bathrooms. His beard was harsh against her skin. He was this brick wall that everything and everyone threw themselves at and nothing made an effect… until now as he melted against her, fitting himself to her body as she did to his. It felt so good, and he tasted so amazing. Dean. This man she had spent so long getting to know, who she had faced life and death situations with time after time… he was here, in her arms, and that was all that mattered. A blaze ignited under her skin everywhere he touched and she delighted in his shiver and his pulling her even closer._

_And then he broke the kiss, pulling back, forcing her to step back._

"_Buffy, you don't know what you're doing," he said gruffly._

"_Yes," she said, nodding, "Yes, I do."_

_He was shaking his head, his mouth open to do the one thing he was the best at, berating her, but she didn't let him, pulling his face back down to hers, their lips clashing again. The kiss was full of need, unfulfilled desires and everything that had gone unsaid for so many months. The kiss was a spark in a dark night and Buffy couldn't get enough of him, her body overflowing with the pull for more._

_Dean yanked back again, his voice strained as she shook his head in her hands. "Buffy-"_

"_Don't stop," she whispered, pressing her lips to his again. "Please. Don't stop touching me." He kissed her, his tongue wrestling with hers before he made himself pull back again. Buffy's lips tingled with the loss._

_A heavy silence started filling up the empty spaces between them._

"_Dean," she said softly, her eyes closed, pulling him into the circle of her arms as his fingers dug into her sweatshirt. She felt her heart stop as the silence prolonged and she held her breathe, waiting for him to push her away._

_Instead a strangled sound escaped his throat and then his hand was on her cheek, lifting her face to his and he was kissing her._

_Buffy whimpered against his lips as he pulled her up against his body, his arms tight around her. Their wounds once again didn't exist. The fights didn't exist. The room, the location, the time… Nothing existed but each other, the feeling of the other's body against their own, the need and the desire building quickly._

_Somehow the door to the room was slammed shut and he managed to back them up until they were at his bed. There was no stopping, no pausing this time. They both knew, they both understood and they both didn't care._

_Buffy helped him strip her shoes and pants off, yanking her panties down as she lay back on the bed. He followed, his jeans already undone as he shoved them down. Buffy's hands were buried in his hair as he pushed her legs up. She didn't feel the strain in her shoulder, the pull in her abdomen or the tear of her thigh. She didn't care about what this was doing to him and his battle wounds. She didn't feel anything but Dean's calloused fingers dancing across her skin. The heat between her legs waiting for him and the short pants leaving his mouth as more skin touched, more passion built, more nerves waited for the breaking point._

_Without any pretense or waiting, Dean thrust into her, filling her and Buffy arched her body, meeting him as she cradled him against her, a short cry leaving her lips. His lips suddenly covered hers and she returned the kiss with ardor, pulling him in as close as she could as the bed rocked beneath them, scraping against the threadbare carpet. The cheap mattress springs danced in tune with their thrusts, moans and cries muffled in kisses._

_It was everything that had gone unsaid between them, everything that had built up to that moment. It was hot, hard and fast and comforting, passionate and healing._

_When Buffy came, her back corded, her mouth open in a silent scream as she dug her nails into his back so hard her nail beds wailed in pain. Something snapped inside her, something new and strange filling her to the brink as he filled her…_

* * *

You can probably imagine where this is going… or maybe not.

Either way, spoilery cliff note? I wouldn't have done anything different.


	12. Chapter Twelve - July 2015

**Chapter Twelve - July 2015**

_breaking and you're climbing  
__and my innocence is all you have  
__i can hear you crying  
__from places only you can understand_

_The sun was starting to peek over the horizon._

_Buffy stood in the doorway of Dean's room, her arms crossed as she leaned against the doorjamb. The night air was cool, waiting for the sun to come along and beat it away and she shivered in her jacket. She heard Dean moving around in the room behind her, finishing up packing his bag._

_They hadn't talked since they had woken up that morning, Dean's watch alarm waking them up early as all hell so they could make it back in time for Buffy to get to work._

_Work._

_Home._

_Reality._

_Buffy's face was blank as she stared at the dim glow coming up over the world. She heard Dean walking towards the door and he didn't say a word or barely glance at her as he brushed past her and headed towards the open trunk of the Impala. Buffy watched him lift the covering to his weapon cache and grab his handy shotgun before letting the cover drop. He tossed his bag in on top of it and shut the trunk._

_He still didn't look back at her as he headed towards the driver's side door, leaning in and tucking the gun in under his seat._

_He then turned, heading towards the office to check them out._

_Buffy took a deep, shaky breath, watching him walk away. When he disappeared in the office, she turned to look in the room where she had spent the last twelve hours. She would be lying if she thought it had been anything short of amazing… and she would be lying if she said she was okay with what had happened; that she was ashamed, but full of no regrets. That she… had a plan. Knew what she was doing. Was being smarter than someone would think… _

_Instead, she felt like she was straddling a fence, standing between two worlds._

_One was inside this room where everything was easy and full of warmth. She had found something in Dean's arms she hadn't even realized she had been missing… something that seemed to put the pieces inside her together, fitting perfectly in place. They hadn't stopped but to nap for an hour here and there; either they were making love or they were talking or they were napping._

_It had been… everything. Everything that was new and shiny, yet old and familiar. A new side of Dean that she never would have dreamed of seeing and a side of her she thought had long ago died, long before Sunnydale disappeared._

_And now it was over. And the real world was pressing back in, and she was remembering the things she had had planned that weekend with people who had no idea what she was doing._

_Buffy stared at the unmade bed, not knowing what to call the lump making a way too comfy home in her throat. Regret? Sadness? Pain? Guilt?_

_She felt insanely numb, like her emotions had taken a vacation because they knew the shit storm that was on the horizon and was heading straight for them at terrifying speeds. Well, that didn't help anything, emotions, get it together._

_She needed to get it together. And what was it that she needed to get together? She didn't know._

_Numb._

_The sun was rising behind her, reality seeping back into what she had done yesterday… despite her inability to feel anything at the moment, she couldn't think about both worlds at the same time. They both fit. When she thought about what had happened here, she felt right. Complete in ways she had never felt before and ways she couldn't even put a name to._

_But when she thought about what waited for a couple dozen miles east… that felt right in its own ways too._

_So… what now?_

_Swallowing the marble down, Buffy gripped the doorknob to the room, staring at the bed before turning away, closing the door behind her._

_Dean was waiting for her at the car and she started at the sight. She hadn't even heard him come up._

_He just looked at her, his face unreadable before licking his lips and looking away. He opened his door and got in without a word. With each step Buffy took to her side of the Impala, she felt like she was sinking deeper and deeper into concrete quicksand. She was aware of what had happened, knew she should be doing something or saying something, but the curious numbness was winning the game._

_She opened her door, the hinges groaning, before closing it gently behind her._

_He didn't move to start the car. He just sat and stared at the rising sun and she did the same. It wasn't uncomfortable or weird, but it wasn't comfortable and easy either._

_It was… nothingness._

"_So what now?" he asked in a low voice._

_Buffy's eyes didn't leave the rising sun, the orange hues starting to touch on the hood of the car. A long moment passed wherein she thought about the answer to that question. What now… What had happened between them yesterday? What were they now? And what about her life back home? Who was she? What was home? What did she want?_

_What did she want?_

"_I don't know," she said softly in reply, turning to look out the passenger side window. She felt Dean's gaze burning her where he stared and she turned to him, not sure what to expect… They hadn't talked about the morning after. They hadn't talked about her world in Manhattan or his world on the road. Neither said a word as they just looked at each other, neither breaking the bubble growing between them…_

_Dean shifted in his seat, the leather of his jacket rubbing against itself as he offered her a lame smile. She tried to return it but it was that kind of smile where your muscles moved with what your brain commanded, but the emotional kickback was devastating._

_He leaned forward, starting the car. It came to life with a roar, disturbing the peace of the morning, breaking it. Shattering it._

_Dean put it into drive, and the car lurched away from the motel._

_Buffy watched it disappear in her mirror as he drove her back to New York City._

* * *

Worst. Car trip. Ever.

While the one out there had been hugely uncomfortable because were mad at each other, this one was so much worse. We didn't talk. There was no music. There was just the road, the people we passed and the sight of Manhattan. He didn't even gripe when he entered the city because he hated driving among the crazy inhabitants.

There was just… nothing.

And I made it worse when I asked him to drop me off a block away from the apartment.

It was the answer to the question that had hung between us like a rotting elephant carcass.

He just stopped, pulling into an empty spot. He didn't put the car in park, he didn't look at me. I sat for a minute, waiting… for what? I didn't even know but for something… but nothing happened.

And what was I supposed to expect? Things had changed.

And it was one thousand percent my fault.

When I got out, he took off, barely giving me a chance to close the door.

* * *

_Buffy stood on the street, watching Dean's taillights until they turned a corner and were gone. She heard a few customary honks and she imagined how he was reacting, throwing his hands up, yelling, gripping the steering wheel until his hands were pale with lack of blood… or maybe nothing. Maybe he was just like he had been, just like she was… numb._

_Or angry._

_Taking a deep shaky breath, Buffy's hand tightened on her bag and she thought about moving to follow the sidewalk down the same street she had just watched him drive down._

_She didn't move. The sun was hot, making the sweatshirt itchy and suffocating but she didn't move… Someone with a large cart of magazines was rattling by when one of the wheels turned on its own, careening the cart towards her and someone yelling at her with a Russian accent jerked her back to her senses and she sidestepped the cart just in time._

_The Russian continued to sputter curses about the wheel and apologizing before accusing her of not moving and she just stared at him before nodding, agreeing with whatever he was saying and turning to look down the road. Wondering if he would randomly appear, be coming back… to say what?_

_She had said no. No to the invisible question that nobody had wanted to utter… No._

_The block-long trek to the apartment was long and for the first time since yesterday morning, she felt the ache in her thigh from where the arrow had entered her as she climbed up the stairs. When she reached the front door, she stopped._

_She was still numb._

_She felt like she should be going through the motions of what she should say to someone. Like… Ted. And probably Marinna since she was probably late to work and why she was also wearing so many layers to hide the wounds that were still healing and why she couldn't stay for a drink or why she was away for the weekend or why she might be falling…_

_Buffy stopped herself, turning the key. No. That was impossible; it was the heat of the moment, things were getting intense. Lives had almost ended, death was all around them, it was only inevitable that something would happen like that._

_It had nothing to do with emotions or feelings or anything other than responding to the situation._

_The clean definition felt too sterile._

_She entered the apartment, dropping her bag on the floor, absently reminding herself that she had to discard of the clothes she had accidentally brought along that were burned and covered in blood. She wanted to take a shower since she hadn't taken once since yesterday morning because… _

_She wanted to think of what she would say to Ted when she told him what had happened._

_Because that's what she was going to do._

_Tell Ted._

_Buffy sat on the couch, staring at the blank small TV screen. The sun was coming through the window and creating a harsh glare on the screen, letting her see the dark hole that was her reflection where she sat._

_'Ted, we have to talk.'_

_'Something happened this weekend. I don't know what or how or why or when or how or….'_

_'There's… this guy… and it's like I'm someone else when I'm with him and someone else with you and…'_

_'I cheated on you.'_

_The word made Buffy want to vomit, nausea strolling through her stomach like it was on a parade. Oh god, what had she done? And like the answer to a math equation, Dean's face as he waited for her to get out of the car popped up into her head and the nausea doubled._

_Buffy felt the tears clamoring at the back of her throat as she watched Dean driving away in her mind's eye again._

_"Buffy?"_

_Buffy jerked, turning to look over her shoulder as Ted came out of their bedroom. He was frowning as he stopped tying the tie around his neck. She felt like her eyes were wide as saucers, that she was giving everything away, that she was about to set fire to everything that had made her feel safe and happy in the last few years…_

_"Are you just getting home?"_

_Buffy looked away, swallowing before standing. She could taste the words on the tip of her tongue, knew that they were there and ready to come out… she felt the physical presence of the words as she thought about shoving everything out like a spray of word vomit… just to get it over with._

_"Ted…" she started, her voice sounding distant and he reached her, that familiar Ted smile on his face. He touched her sweatshirt, held her arm and leaned in for a kiss._

_She didn't feel any of it._

_"Did you find anything? I think Marinna called here earlier…"_

_'Ted, I have to tell you something.'_

_"She didn't leave a message though, so I assumed you guys came back separately…"_

_'Ted, I… '_

_"Buffy?"_

_Buffy opened her mouth. Ted stared at her expectantly._

_"We didn't find anything," were the words that came out, her voice false. She shrugged. "A trip that was the definition of nada."_

* * *

So… imagine my life is a snow globe, right? You have to shake the contents for some action so when you turn it right-side up, everything is a magical world that hadn't been there before, where the snow is righting itself and falling back into place.

The moment those vampires attacked me in that alleyway and the moment Dean entered my life… my snow globe had been upside down and shaking itself for around like a crazy thing.

I tried. I really did try. With Ted. With chocolate chip Buffy. I told myself the weekend had been a fluke, a mistake of seriously epic proportions and that I had done a fine job burning the bridges between Dean and I so I was probably never going to see him again. Which meant I could go back to my sunshiny and happy life like that weekend had never happened.

I was wrong.

That weekend had changed me. Something had clicked into place after the warehouse, after surviving together, after… everything that had happened, everything that had passed between us.

Ted immediately noticed something was up.

He saw the change in me too, despite my efforts for a while. A lot of it was the guilt factor, despite my insistence that nothing had come from that weekend but some vampire burnage. What kind of person was I to do this to Ted? The most amazing human being to ever walk the planet, the one guy who had given me a normal life, who had given me a light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the darkest shadows of my life… only to have me treat what we had like it was nothing more than bitter ash in my mouth.

But I didn't say anything. I never said anything… I explained away the weekend, saying the search hadn't gone well. That we were down an artist at the gallery, that… excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse…

After a while, I became a shadow and I started hating myself for it. It was turning into my existential crisis from Sunnydale all over again. I didn't have the words to say what had passed between us that weekend or an explanation of what and how it had happened… but it stayed with me, sticking to me like I was caught in a gigantic spider web of doom and gloom and all I could do was struggle to get away from it, try to stay in the happy parts of the pieces still left of my life in New York City.

The only time I felt like myself - felt alive - was when I was slaying. Hunting. I went out every single night.


	13. Chapter Thirteen - Aug-Sept 2015

**Chapter Thirteen - August 2015 (three weeks later)**

_hoedown, say showdown  
__everywhere you look  
__we're fighting…  
__hear the call…_

_She wasn't going anywhere._

_Buffy put on a burst of speed, leaping in the air with her leg straight out. The heel of her boots caught the vampire in the middle of her back, forcing her to fall face-first into the concrete. Buffy followed along, their limbs getting tangled as they rolled around on the ground._

_The vamp hissed at her, her claws scratching at her but Buffy didn't feel any of it as she struggled with her. They rolled on the concrete, rocks and debris biting into Buffy's back. She felt the heat and the burn of the vampire's breath on her neck, the drip of the anticipatory saliva on her canines closing in on her as Buffy reached around and yanked the vamp's long, red hair._

_A high pitched squeal escaped her throat and Buffy used the leverage to roll around so she was straddling the girl._

_Buffy hit her once. Twice. A few more times. The sound of her bones cracking under her fists echoed against the walls around her and Buffy felt the lackluster attempts to shove her off. But she was in control now. The vampire was the prey now, no longer the hunter…_

_Buffy yanked the stake out of the back of her pants and slammed it down into her chest. With an audible pop, she burst into dust, the remnants mingling into the patchwork street._

_Buffy took a deep breath, rolling to her feet. She closed her eyes, stretching her neck until it popped before focusing. She had felt two…_

_A door in the alley popped open and Buffy's eyes flew open._

"_Hey, lady, what the hell ya doin' out here?" a burly man asked her, his voice rough, his face shadowed from the light coming from inside the restaurant._

_Just saving your ass, no big deal._

"_Nothing," Buffy replied shortly, putting the stake back and turning away from him, melting back into the shadows._

* * *

I found vampires, a few demons. I cleaned up the streets as best I could, widening my circle until it started encompassing blocks and blocks and blocks. I found nests and exterminated them. I tracked vampires all the way to Jersey. I was everywhere and anywhere, every single night, not going home until I was too tired to barely stand.

It was the only way I could face the next day with a smile on my face. It was the only way I could be chocolate chip Buffy. It was the only way I could get rest without actually getting rest.

It was the only way I could excuse the fact that I wandered around, looking around every corner and down every street, secretly hoping to see that familiar shadow, hear that familiar engine…

But he was never there.

I tried calling him after the first month. It went straight to an automated voicemail and I didn't leave anything. About two months later, after not seeing him and fully, one hundred percent expecting to get that familiar drop-in that I had become so accustomed to… that I had started looking forward to so much that I was actually putting my heart into a grinder the longer he didn't show, I tried again. It rang and rang and rang, never going to voicemail.

He'd probably gotten rid of that phone.

He didn't call and I didn't try again.

I was back to being oatmeal raisin cookie Buffy by night and chocolate chip cookie Buffy by day. I started making myself spend more time with Ted, I hung out more with Marshall and Lily and Robin and I hit a gay club. I went suit shopping with Barney and I even hooked Robin up with a sexy new artist whose name really was Simon.

During the day, I was back to being the sunshiny and rosy Buffy, but my heart wasn't in it. The only time I felt like I was really me was when I went hunting at night…

And I think Ted somehow knew that.

He sensed the difference the minute I got back from the hunt with Dean. He knew something had changed but then we both got really good at the avoidy thing. We didn't talk about it. In fact, we stopped talking about all things that were awkward and hard. We both got really good at the surface stuff, at being that couple… while everything slowly melted into a pot of dead bodies.

I was in the motions of life, having finally put what had happened behind me, knowing that things weren't ever going to be the same and trying to convince myself that I was okay with that…

When he came back.

* * *

**September 2015 (four weeks later)**

_It was the sound of a fight that had her running._

_There was really no such thing as an empty street in New York City, no matter the time or day or location, but this one was, barely any cars parked on the street. A series of decrepit buildings lined one side and a large metal-link fence lined the other with large pictures of the next new apartment high rise, aimed to raise the value of the neighborhood and give people with actual money a reason to say they lived in this district or that or whatever people did._

_They were in the middle of the road, one beating the other back towards the building-lined side of the street. It was brutal and she could hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh as she slowed a bit, dodging into the shadows of the buildings so she could come up unannounced. She had to be a bit more careful who she randomly dropped in on these days. The last time she had stopped a fight it had actually been two amateur gangs fighting over something as measly as a block of turf. She'd had to break three kneecaps and a few noses once they all turned on her for interrupting._

_Not a shining Slayer moment._

_They were fighting in the shadow of the streetlights and she couldn't get a good look at them when one of them rammed their forehead into the others and then a stake was in his hand. Buffy stopped against the security bars on a window, her fingers wrapping around the cool metal, her jaw dropping, close enough to hear the grunt of exertion as he shoved the stake into the vampire's chest._

_Buffy forgot how to breathe as her nervous system seized._

_Dean._

_He didn't pause to catch his breath or wait to see if someone had seen anything. He flipped the stake in his hand, placing it into an inner pocket and then he turned, heading into a black hole of an alleyway at a light jog. Buffy didn't take a second to re-learn how to breathe or check the rest of the street or even ask herself what he was doing here. She followed._

_Buffy rounded the corner, glancing around quickly. No lights, no night vision. Everything was a giant ink ball._

"_Dean?" she said softly, her voice barely carrying in the muggy air and she swallowed uncertainly when nothing responded. She stepped on a broken glass bottle, startling herself. She looked behind her before heading deeper. Still nothing responded. "Dean?"_

_Buffy followed the alley out to the other side, her eyes adjusting as she looked down both sides of the street. She didn't hear any cars or anyone running. She actually heard nothing, not even the night breeze rustling some garbage or someone yelling a few blocks away. A whole lot of nothingness except for the wave of disappointment that started filling her chest cavity like it wanted her to drown as she realized he was gone._

_She had lost him. Again._

_Dean. He had been here, she'd know him anywhere. The sound of his fighting, the way he walked, the way he punched…_

"_Dean?" she asked again, turning back to look in the alley, stepping past a double-sided dumpster when a hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing her arm and yanking her into the shadow along with it. "He-"_

_Dean's hand slapped across her mouth, cutting her off as he pulled her deeper into the shadows. Buffy followed instinctively, blindly, thinking about nothing other than 'holy crap, Dean was here' as he whispered harshly, "Shut up."_

_He didn't remove his hand. Buffy swallowed, finding that the only thing she could focus on was not moving her lips against his hand where he held it over her face. Because that would be weird and what would he think? That she was back in fourth grade, slobbering all over someone's hand and…_

_Buffy closed her eyes for a second, stopping her thoughts. She was nervous. Obviously. She tried to slow her breathing from the adrenaline hockey puck she'd received when he grabbed her, but it only made her breathe harder._

_Dean was back._

_She should have been concentrating on the fact that he was holding her almost against her will - pretty much against her will considering he was basically treating her like an insolent child who wouldn't stop talking… but all she could concentrate on was the rush of emotions and the effect they were having on her body. Everything was hyperaware and tingly. He was warm against her, fighting off the chill of the night; she could feel him through her jacket where she was pressed to him. His hand smelled like wood and cold._

_Dean was here._

_Buffy's eyes ticked up to see him but it was too dark - it was all physical as his hand wound around her back, keeping her still. Buffy swallowed, remembering the last time he had touched her at all. It had been in the motel room, which felt like just yesterday considering the rush of warmth that tickled across the surface of her skin. She shivered against him and she felt his hold loosening just a smidge._

_Buffy pulled her head away from his hand, but didn't move away, her voice barely above a whisper, "What's going on?"_

_"Shh," he whispered back. He wasn't breathing, like he was trying to listen and then she heard something. A car door opening. But this was nothing like the Impala's gargantuan car door mouths opening - these were soft and subtle, shut with a gentle click, trying to be quiet. Her stomach cramped wildly and the awkwardness of being near Dean melted away as her Slayer senses kicked into gear._

_There were six of them, coming from where she had just seen Dean slay one. And they were heading into the alleyway._

_"They know we're here," she said, not bothering to be quiet and she heard Dean roll his eyes._

_"Thanks, Sherlock," he grunted, easing out to glance behind the dumpster. Buffy did the same. Oh yeah, there were six. And they were all pro wrestler-sized, although they were unfortunately sans the tight colorful unitards._

_"Did someone put out a hit on you that I haven't heard about?" Buffy joked, trying to keep her tone light as they started filling the alley entrance. Dean didn't respond and Buffy felt the crack in her concentration as he shifted behind her, his arm sliding against her back. She shivered again and he must have felt it because he stepped away from her._

_She didn't like the way her heart deflated and she forced herself to take a deep, shaky breath. But really, what had she been expecting? Him to grab her and kiss her until she couldn't breathe again? A flood of shame slammed into her chest plate with such force, she gasped, her lungs closing._

_Suddenly Buffy wanted to hurt things. Really badly._

_Clenching the edge of the dumpster, she waited as the vampires started looking around. The alley seemed especially long here for some reason or that was probably just her mind screwing with her perception since the closer they got, the less time she had left with Dean._

_God, Summers, get your crap together._

_"Plan?" she asked gruffly, her voice cold and narrow._

_Dean grunted, his voice just as devoid. "Stay right here and don't die."_

_"Wow," Buffy mused. "Aren't you a bundle of A+ planning."_

_"Bite me."_

_Buffy clenched her jaw. "Fine. How about I go out and play bait while you stand back here and hide like a little girl."_

_There was a heavy pause and she felt Dean's glare in the back of her head. "That's a bad idea."_

"_Well I'm not hearing any other great ideas for how we're going to handle this, so we're kinda stuck, aren't we?"_

"_You can shove the bitchy attitude right back up your ass," Dean replied. Buffy glared at him over her shoulder. "Whatever crawled up there and died, don't go shoving it on my plate."_

_It was you, she thought, but she held that to herself. Because it was him, but it wasn't at the same time. Three freaking months later and she still didn't know what to do or what she was doing in the first place. The crazy joy she had felt shuddering through her when she had seen him had been staggering, but now the numbness from the motel was back._

_She wondered if her mind was just trying to protect herself from… well, herself. Been there, done that, haven't we, brain? You know how Buffy emotions turn out, don't you?_

_"Whatever," Buffy said, stepping out from behind the dumpster._

"_Goddamn it, no," Dean whispered harshly as he grabbed the back of her jacket but she slipped through his fingers._

_"Hey!" she called to the vamps, hearing Dean cursing softly where she left him. The vampires stopped and Buffy advanced, holding her hands out, the rush of irrational stupidity clashing with annoyance and anger at herself giving her some extra pep in her step. She knew the odds weren't in her favor and she didn't care. She felt better out here with six gigantic vampires than in the shadows with her one human. "I've got midnight snack written all over my cute designer skirt, buddy."_

_The vampires didn't move and Buffy slowed to a stop, staring at them. They didn't advance. They didn't say anything._

_"Hello? Nice, ripe juicy girl just standing here, waiting to be eaten," she yelled at them but nothing happened. "Guys?"_

_Instead of doing the typical vampire dance of taunting, chortling, chuckling, hissing or growling… they were silent. It was intensely unnerving as Buffy stood in the alley, watching them as they watched her. She didn't hear Dean behind her. She couldn't see what they were doing although it was clear that the mission didn't involve drinking her blood from her limbs like champagne glasses._

_In fact, it felt like the mission didn't involve her at all._

_A heavy disquiet settled in Buffy's stomach as they continued to stare at her and she frowned. No, this was definitely not right._

_"Slayer here," she continued, stepping forward. They didn't move. They actually seemed to become even more statue-like at her words. "What is this, the Twilight Zone?"_

_Buffy couldn't see their faces, shaded in the dark, made deeper by the streetlights on the street. She saw one of them turn to look at the others, and almost like he was telepathic they all turned to face him before turning around and heading back out of the alley._

_Buffy just watched them leave, her mouth hanging open. She looked around, wondering if there was a scary clown behind her and she had just now found out that vampires have aversions to creepy Pennywise clowns. But no. Just her._

_But it wasn't the 'oh noes, it's the Slayer, let's run away' sort of walking away. This was 'you aren't in the plan, get away' sort of walking away. They disappeared, the sound of car doors opening and closing before a soft engine started the only thing telling her they had been there in the first place._

_"Okay," she said slowly, turning back to the dumpster. "What the hell was that about?"_

_When she rounded the corner, Dean was gone._


	14. Chapter Fourteen - September 2015

**Chapter Fourteen - September 2015**

_hell opened up and put on a sale  
__gather 'round and haggle  
__for hard cash, we will lie and deceive  
__gather 'round and haggle  
__for hard cash, we will lie and deceive  
__even our masters don't know the webs we weave_

We all like mysteries, don't we? A little bit of whodunit and where'd-he-go and what-the-hell-is-happening…

No. I didn't. You wouldn't. Nobody would because not only was he playing mystery/elusive guy all over again, there were now really freakishly large vampires in the mix and I didn't understand why, how or what the hell they were doing. Seriously, is your first instinct to sneak around like that? No. It's to maim, kill, drink, blah blah. This was organized. Which is bad. Learn this lesson: bad.

No mix-y. Bad mix-y.

The weirdness of the night wasn't over yet either.

* * *

_Buffy walked home, trailing her fingers along the building, her eyes glued to the ground. She hadn't found Dean after he had disappeared after those vamps. She had even headed back out to the street to see if she could get a trace on the car they had gotten into but it was like it had never been there. Not that she knew anything about tracking cars or what to even look for._

_She tracked the supernatural stuff, not the human objects. And despite her best efforts, she hadn't run into any other vampires that night. She felt like her skin was humming with the need to expend some energy._

_Dean._

_Buffy licked her lips, remembering the way his hand had pressed against them. How warm and rough it had been. So rough but he touched so gently; Buffy shivered, remembering the way his fingers had dragged down her back or the way they gripped her hip or ran up her ribs or…_

"_Okay, brain, emergency brake. Get a grip," Buffy whispered to herself, heading into the alley directly across from her apartment and MacLaren's. It was nearing three in the morning. Ted would be in bed, Marshall and Lily would be in bed, Robin at home and Barney somewhere that wasn't there. The street was quiet and Buffy looked up, noting the windows were dark in her apartment. She stopped, taking a deep breath._

_She didn't want to go back up there. She wasn't tired. She was way too wired from running into Dean, pretending to care more about the mystery vampires that were the size of cars and wandering around aimlessly, hoping for something to punch. But nothing had come about and now she was just a live wire, waiting to snap. She wasn't going to sleep tonight if she went up there._

_But dawn was a few hours away and one thing she had learned about New York was that the vamps were a little more cautious around here, took their time to make sure they got back to their nests before the sun decorated the sky. All precautious and whatever…_

"_Stupid vampires," Buffy mumbled under her breath before heading towards the apartment. She shoved her hand into her pocket to fish her keys out, absently thanking the trash gods that that day had been trash day for their street because the alley smelt surprisingly cleaner than normal - or maybe that was just her brain categorizing different levels of smells in alleys since she spent so much more time in them - when she heard the scuff of a boot on the ground._

_Buffy turned in time, her arm raised to block the arm ready to grab her and she gripped the forearm, yanking the person closer to shove her fist into their nose. They were anticipating her move though because they grabbed her fist in a tight hand and pulled her into the circle of their arms. A passing car's headlights illuminated Dean's face and she gasped._

_One cheekbone had a large cut across the bone, the wound angry and red and he had a large bruise that was already turning the color of the sky on his temple. Buffy tried to pull her fist out of where he held it but he didn't relent and she growled at him._

"_What the hell happened to you?" she asked, angling her head to get a better look but the shadows weren't on her side._

"_Come on," Dean said in reply, yanking her back towards the other end of the alley, away from the apartment and she followed along, closing her fingers around his where he held her hand. He pulled her to the other side of a dumpster where he unceremoniously dropped her hand. She cringed, the light better on this side from a closer streetlamp, at the glare he shot her. "This is because of your stupid ass."_

"_Excuse me?"_

"_When I tell you to stay, you goddamn stay," Dean bit out, his voice low and harsh and Buffy frowned at the tone, not liking the way it made her insides curdle like rotten milk. He was mad. Ridiculously mad. And she had no idea why._

"_What…" Buffy shook her head, trying to catch up when it clicked. The vampires. "Those vampires? What happened? They did the disappear thing and poofed away, I couldn't even find them. What-"_

"_Yeah," Dean nodded. "They sure did. Because they were looking for you. And they found you. I couldn't exactly let them live, could I?"_

"_Okay, I'm not following-"_

"_I don't have time to coddle you right now," Dean snapped, the anger in his words like a knife abrading her skin and Buffy flinched against the wall, staring at him. She had never seen him this angry. Ever. He was beyond livid, he was enraged. "Here's the deal. You're gonna stop slaying, you're gonna lay low, you're gonna pretend that there is no such thing as vampires or demons or whatever. Got it?"_

_Buffy shook her head. "What? No, that's ridiculous."_

"_Just do what I'm saying. It's not that fucking hard, is it?" Dean asked. He ran his hands through his hair. "Just… lay low. It's simple."_

"_Dean, what is going on?"_

"_No," he said, cutting her off with a slash of his hand in the air. Buffy jerked back at the bark. "Just… do as I say, okay? Please. I'm only asking nicely once."_

"_And I'm asking you to explain what the hell you're talking about. I don't understand."_

"_And you won't understand because if I tell you what's going on, you're gonna get your head all filled up with whatever stupid fancy shit Slayers do and get yourself killed." Dean took a deep breath, closing his eyes. They opened slowly, trained on her face and Buffy's heart skipped a beat at the intensity in them. He wasn't kidding. "Please."_

_Buffy wanted to nod her head and say yes, of course, sure but she couldn't. He was asking something that she wasn't sure she could do anymore and for reasons he wasn't really explaining - at all. And the mystery part of Dean Winchester was no longer fun, especially when he came to town, shouting demands at her that made zero sense. Buffy moved to grab his hand but he moved out of her space, stepping back a few paces. She didn't follow._

"_Do me this favor and just… stay low. Don't do anything, okay?" he asked, his tone softening. Buffy stared at him, not responding. He clenched his jaw before rubbing a hand over his face. "Just do what I'm asking. Please."_

_Buffy frowned at him._

_And then he turned and walked away._

_Buffy didn't hesitate a second. Like hell she was just going to let him roll into town, order her around and then disappear without even an explanation. Buffy was after him and she grabbed his arm, stopping him, ready to turn him around and make him tell her what was going on. But Dean had other ideas._

_Dean yanked his arm out of her hands and shoved her away, his eyes dark and foreboding as Buffy stumbled back._

"_What the hell was that for?" Buffy snapped, her ire rising to the occasion as she stalked back after him. Dean didn't respond. Instead he just clenched his teeth hard enough to shatter all his teeth as Buffy got back up in his face, her own glare hard enough to rival his. He grabbed her hand before she could touch him again and the grip he held on her wrist actually hurt. Buffy probably should have said something along the lines of, "Ow. That hurts. Stop. Let go."_

_But she didn't. She reacted like a Slayer, twisting her wrist out of his grip and punching him in the face._

_Buffy waited for the yelling. She waited for the anger and the harsh words. But they didn't come. Instead he reeled around and punched her right back. Buffy's head snapped to the side and she gasped at the burst of pain right where his knuckles connected with her cheekbone. Buffy turned to stare at him, her mouth gaped in surprise, her hand on her cheek. He was just glaring at her._

"_I'm not fucking joking around with you," he ground out._

_She wanted to reply with something witty and quippy and angry and honest and everything else all rolled into one but she didn't. He hit her. He punched her. Buffy's lips pulled back in a snarl as she launched herself at him. And then it was just a blur of fists as she railed on him and he whaled on her. The fight lasted less than a few minutes as she caught him in the gut with her fist just as his elbow landed in the center of her face. A cry fell from her lips as pain erupted inside her head and she stumbled back, giving him the advantage._

_Dean shoved her against the wall, trapping her against the brick with his body as she tried to find her focus. And then everything stopped. Buffy's lungs ached with the need for more air as Dean's body enclosed around hers, his arms holding her steady against the wall. The ache in her head slowly dissipated as they stared at each other and she became acutely aware of how close he was, how hard he was and how much she wanted-_

_He kissed her. Hard. Rough. A cry fell from Buffy's throat, getting lost against his lips as his mouth mauled hers, pressing her harder into the wall. Buffy gripped his shoulders, winding her arms around his neck as his hands found her hips, shoving her up against the wall. Buffy lifted a leg, wrapping it around him and Dean ripped his lips away from hers, lifting her up in his arms enough for her to wrap her legs around him and then she found his lips again, this time hers biting at him, kissing him hard, her teeth clashing with his as their tongues dueled. He slammed her back up against the wall and Buffy gasped in pain but didn't pull back. It felt good._

_It felt right._

_The anger that he had brought with him rivaled her own although she wasn't sure where hers came from. All that mattered was that Dean was there again, he was back in her arms, and she would be damned if she was going to let him disappear again. Buffy's nails dug into his scalp, yanking his hair to get him closer to her and she felt one of his hands holding her up while the other found her hip, shoving her skirt up to her hip._

_Everything happened so fast. Buffy's nails hurt from gripping his shoulder so hard as she snaked her other hand between them down to his jeans. She found the button, found the zipper and shoved it down as he groaned against her lips, kissing her so hard she would bruise._

_Buffy wasn't sure what this was. It wasn't anything like what had happened back at the motel. It wasn't like anything she had experienced before. This was different. Even with Angel, with Spike… this had something different tinged on it and it felt so right - so good, so perfect having him here with her again. The anger of the moment wasn't derived from something bad. It wasn't coming from a place of darkness, like she had experienced so often before… this was light. This was passion like she had never felt before and suddenly everything in her world slipped right into place, right where it was meant to be._

_Buffy's hand shoved his jeans down, shoved his boxers down enough for his hard member to pop free and Dean took care of the rest. He found her panties, shoving them out of the way as he angled himself at her entrance._

_They pulled back at the same time, their eyes finding each other's; lips aching, faces bruised… their eyes met and for a split second, everything in the world stopped for them as he thrust into her, shoving her up against the wall with such force she felt like her ribs would be bruised._

_Cries of pleasure were swallowed up in kisses as they made love against the brick wall. That they were in the alley didn't matter. That they were right next to her apartment, right where Ted was sleeping, didn't even enter her mind. She didn't care. She had him, in her arms, the… right one, the right person. Every single touch ignited a fire inside her body and she felt him responding in kind as she held him within her arms and legs._

_When she came, she broke the kiss, pressing her forehead against his as a strangled cry fell from her lips. His breath was hot on her face as he pumped inside her faster, his fingers gripping her tightly. Buffy felt another burn starting, another pleasure-filled explosion waiting to kindle hotter when he came inside her, his hips jerking painfully against hers before he slouched against her, using the wall to keep from falling onto the dirty ground._

_A long moment passed, his face pressed into her neck, her fingers playing with his hair before he lifted her off of him and he slid out. She found her feet, her legs feeling wilted as she gripped the brick behind her. She saw his hands were shaking as he fixed his pants, re-clasping his jeans. He was staring at the ground._

_Buffy pushed her skirt down, looking at him before glancing around the alley before looking back at him._

_Neither spoke._

_She didn't have words to describe what had just happened. It had just… happened. Her skin tingled where had touched her. Her face ached where he had hit her._

_But it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad and that… that was bad._

_Buffy bit her lip, feeling the tears coming to the surface. God, what was she doing? Biting her lip harder, Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them to find him watching her. She gave him a watery smile, unable to stop herself from stepping towards him. She wasn't sure if he had the same idea but he met her, his arms winding around her and pulling her into a hug. A sob fell from her lips as he held her. She felt his hand running across her hair, his lips pressing against her head as she stifled the sobs aching to come up._

_She hated it that he seemed to get it. She had no words for what was happening between them, no idea how to define it or handle it, and he got it. And she kind of hated him for that._

_A hot tear fell from her eye as he pulled back. His hand found her cheek and Buffy really wanted to turn away, not let him see her falling apart in front of him all over again but she didn't. He lifted her face to look at him and she bit her lip to keep the sobs in. His face blurred as more tears came up - tears for him, tears for her, tears for… others. Because this… this was…_

_He kissed her again, gently. Buffy moaned in his mouth, arching up to get more, hugging him closer as he pulled her closer. The world did that stopping thing again as nothing else mattered but the other. But this kiss was soft, easy… it said everything that literally could not be said and it only made Buffy want to cry harder as everything she had worked so hard to keep in the darkness, keep buried, came bursting to the surface._

_When Dean pulled back, he stared down at her, his brow furrowed. Buffy met his gaze, reading everything in his and letting him see everything in hers. She glanced down at his lips before looking back at him, but this time he let her go, stepping out of her arms. She let him._

_An eternity passed between them as Buffy's mind whirled through everything that she was feeling when he glanced over at her apartment, his face suddenly shrouded and dark. And all of the emotions in her chest died a violent death as he glanced back at her, his face resolved. She opened her mouth to say something, anything… but nothing came out._

_He reached up, scratching at his brow before looking at the ground. Then he nodded, glancing at her one more time… and then he turned and walked away._

_No words were needed. Nothing was needed._

_She watched him leave, watched him disappear all over again…_

_Buffy finally felt herself moving towards her apartment. She crossed the street and instead of going upstairs, she sat down on the concrete steps, hugging herself before finally letting go._

_She cried._

_The people passing her on the street didn't bother her. She was just another girl in New York City with a broken heart._

* * *

I was a mess. I was in a mess. I was the mess. Everything was a mess.

Was that a moment of epiphany for me? Ha! Is it ever that easy? Come on, pay attention to the story of Buffy's bad decisions.

Anyway, I didn't see Dean again after that. He did his disappear act and I… went along with it, I guess. What could I do? I was a coward. I didn't know what I wanted and everything that he represented scared the absolute crap out of me. That was something that took me a long time to realize; he was everything that was challenging and hard in life and I had finally built something that was easy. Ted was easy. Work was easy. Friends were easy.

But it wasn't enough…

And the guy didn't answer his phone, he didn't even bother telling me what the hell he was up to and what the hell was up with those freakishly-sized vamps or why the absolute hell he insisted on telling me I couldn't slay.

Like I would actually listen to him without an explanation. I tried for about a week, though, heeding his warning, mostly out of honoring what had happened between us but then I couldn't help myself. It was like a drug; there was something in me that just pulled me out into the night, made my hands and feet ache with the need to find something and kill it.

So I went back to the routine. It was actually a pretty good record I was getting to - slaying every night. My senses were getting honed, my tracking was getting better. A few more nests, a few more treks.

I didn't sleep much but that was okay. I was slaying, I was helping… and it kept me from thinking about things that I didn't want to think about. It got easier as time went on, as things usually do.

You know the saying: time heals all wounds or whatever. It would take more than a few months to heal the gashes I had conjured up with my stupid feelings but they were dulling.

And that was good.


End file.
